Microsoft messes up its gender diversity by ditching female employees

Every technology company is keen to develop as diverse a workforce as possible -- even if only for appearances. Microsoft, like Google and Apple, has taken to publishing its diversity figures, and the latest report is rather mixed.

While Microsoft says that racial diversity has increased slightly, the same cannot be said of the gender balance. The overall percentage of woman at the company has dropped by 2.2 percentage points, and Microsoft has an excuse straight from the 'my dog ate my homework' school of thought: restructuring its phone hardware business meant dumping a lot of women.

The latest diversity report shows that while racial diversity has increased, and there are now more women in certain types of position, there is still a way to go. The number of female employees (just 26.8 percent overall) was not helped by the fact that Microsoft ditched fewer men than women in the last 12 months: 5,316 and 5,701 respectively.

Writing on the Microsoft blog, general manager of Global Diversity and Inclusion Gwen Houston says:

One area of our workforce representation that bears a specific note is that this year -- primarily due to the restructuring of our phone hardware business -- we experienced an overall decline in the percentage of women working at Microsoft worldwide, from 29 percent (Sept. 30, 2014) to 26.8 percent (Sept. 30, 2015).

The workforce reductions resulting from the restructure of our phone hardware business impacted factory and production facilities outside the US that produce handsets and hardware, and a higher percentage of those jobs were held by women. This was the main cause of the decline in female representation at Microsoft. In short, a strategic business decision made in the longer-term interests of the company resulted in a reduction of jobs held by female employees outside the US.

What's interesting about this is that while Microsoft previously had a higher percentage of women working for it, they were in lower positions. Nokia, from whom Microsoft acquired its phone division, would seem to have had a more diverse workforce, and last year this worked in Microsoft's favor. Moving forward, however, after the division's restructuring, the company is going to have to do much more to get more women higher up the employment ladder.

You can check out the full report on the Global Diversity and Inclusion site.

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