Talent intelligence platform Eightfold AI research finds tech layoffs impact women at a disproportionately higher rate than men, undermining industry efforts to improve gender diversity indicates that there is a possibility of
Key Finding: Women in tech are 65% more likely to lose their jobs than men.
The study was led by Sania Khan, chief economist at Eightfold and former senior economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The analysis used data such as the percentage of women in various roles in the industry in 2021 and the types of roles affected by job cuts, and used probability theory to arrive at estimates.
Recruiting and marketing, for example, are two areas that have been hit hard by headcount reductions.
Tech cuts by big companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta have been making headlines in recent months. But Khan noted that the cuts began quietly in the early summer of 2022, when rising interest rates made investors more cautious and startups began to focus more on profitability than on growth.
Eightfold’s research focused on the industry as a whole rather than individual companies.
The analysis also looked at race using the same approach and found that Asian and Black tech workers had disproportionately low layoff rates, 9% below their share of the tech workforce. . Hispanic workers were laid off in proportion to their share of the skilled workforce. White workers lost their jobs at a disproportionately high rate, at 11 percentage points.
The real numbers are that the cuts are affecting more men than women because there are more men in the tech industry. means
The good news, according to Khan, is that tech layoffs still make up a small portion of the overall job market, and many of the recently cut roles are still in demand at other companies and in various industries. There is.
But even if women find new jobs, there is a risk that women will leave the tech industry, Khan said. Especially given the industry’s ongoing challenges regarding sexism and inequality in the workplace.
“That’s something we should look into,” Khan said. “Does this mean that all her DEI efforts over the past few years have been wasted if a woman leaves tech in layoffs and never comes back? , is what we should focus on.”
Sania Khan describes her research on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast.
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Audio editing by Curt Milton.