Google exec: Increasing workplace diversity a ‘long struggle’

Google came under fire at a shareholder meeting Wednesday for its lackluster workplace diversity statistics.

Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson made good on his promise to attend the meeting, open to all investors, to continue raising concerns about the Web giant’s problems with diversity.

{mosads}Only two percent of its workforce is black, according to recently released statistics. By and large, tech companies are overwhelmingly male and tend to have large numbers of white and Asian employees. Tech positions, some of the most prized at the firms, are often even less diverse than the overall companies.

“You’ve not moved the needle on representation very much,” Jackson told Google executives at the meeting, according to the San Jose Mercury News. He reportedly also praised the company’s efforts to diversify.

Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, who is African-American himself, reportedly said the effort to make the workforce more diverse was a “long struggle.”

Lawmakers are starting to speak out about the lack of diversity at tech companies. The Congressional Black Caucus has launched an initiative devoted to the issue, and says it hope to work with companies instead of pressuring them over their workplace issues in the media.

Shareholders at the meeting also rejected a proposal that would have had the company reveal more details about its lobbying efforts. In recent years, Google has become a K Street powerhouse — spending almost $17 million on lobbying in 2014.