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Google scraps diversity ‘aspirations,’ citing role as federal contractor
Published Wed, Feb 5 20256:52 PM ESTUpdated 4 Hours Ago
Jennifer Elias@jenn_elias
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Key Points
- Google is scrapping its diversity targets, citing “recent court decisions and U.S. Executive Orders.”
- The company’s chief people officer said in an internal memo that “in the future, we will no longer have aspirational goals,” when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Google is the latest big company to scrap its diversity goals, following similar announcements at Target, Meta, Walmart and McDonald’s.
Google is scrapping its diversity goals, becoming the latest tech giant to alter its approach to hiring and promotions following the election of President Donald Trump.
In its annual report published on Wednesday, Alphabet excluded language from prior years stating that, “we are committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”
Fiona Cicconi, Alphabet’s chief people officer, told employees in a memo that the company has to make changes due to new requirements.
“Because we are a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes to our programs required to comply with recent court decisions and U.S. Executive Orders on this topic,” Cicconi wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “We’ll continue to invest in states across the U.S. — and in many countries globally — but in the future we will no longer have aspirational goals.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the memo.
Cicconi noted that in 2020, the company set aspirational hiring goals and focused on growing offices outside California and New York to improve representation.
One of Trump’s first acts as president after taking office in January was to sign an executive order ending the government’s DEI programs and putting federal officials overseeing those initiatives on leave. And following a midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter above Washington, D.C., last week, Trump blasted former President Joe Biden and DEI policies claiming they “could have been” to blame for the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001.
Tech companies have shown an eagerness to appease the new administration following a rocky four years during Trump’s first tenure in the White House.
Amazon said earlier in January that it was halting some of its diversity and inclusion initiatives, and Meta announced plans to end a number of internal programs designed to increase the company’s hiring of diverse candidates. Beyond the tech industry, companies including Target, Walmart and McDonald’s have made similar changes.
Google’s commitments for 2025 had included increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups in leadership by 30% and more than doubling the number of Black workers at non-senior levels.
The company began making cuts to its DEI programs in 2023, CNBC reported at the time, getting rid of staffers who were in charge of recruiting underrepresented groups and letting go of DEI leaders who worked with Chief Diversity Officer Melonie Parker.
Parker, who took on her current role in 2019, will work closely on evaluating programs and trainings and update “those that raise risk, or that aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped,” Cicconi wrote in her memo.
She added that the Google’s employee resource groups will remain as will the company’s work with colleges and universities.
A Google spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that the company is “committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities, and over the last year we’ve been reviewing our programs designed to help us get there.”
