Apple's work force is mostly white, Asian and male

CUPERTINO, Calif., Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Apple released its first diversity report Tuesday showing most of its employees are white, Asian and male, mirroring a trend seen across tech companies.

The diversity report shows 70 percent of its 98,000 global employees are male, despite attempts by Apple CEO Tim Cook to increase diversity and inclusion. Around 80 percent of its tech employees and 72 percent of its leadership team are men.

"Apple is committed to transparency, which is why we are publishing statistics about the race and gender makeup of our company," Cook wrote in a blog post accompanying the report. "Let me say up front: As CEO, I'm not satisfied with the numbers on this page. They're not new to us, and we've been working hard for quite some time to improve them. We are making progress, and we're committed to being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing our products."

In term of ethnicity and race, Apple employees worldwide are 55 percent white, followed by 15 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic and seven precent black, which is close to the national average for tech workers.

Cook writes that key hires, including new retail chief Angela Ahrendts, would go toward increasing Apple's diversity and inclusiveness. While the company has slightly better numbers when it comes to black employees, it isn't dissimilar to the numbers reported by other tech companies.

EBay reported a 42 percent female work force, and 61 percent of employees are white, while Facebook said its workforce is 69 percent male and 57 percent white. Twitter's workforce is 70 percent male and 59 percent white.

Major Silicon Valley tech companies have begun voluntarily releasing statistics about the lack of black, Hispanic and women workers. The companies would earlier release this data to the U.S. government but under the cover of confidentiality. After attempts were made to access this information, specifically from U.S. civil rights leader Jessie Jackson, these companies released this data and have been criticized for not doing enough to increase diversity in the workforce.

"The walls are coming down to expose barren fruit trees," said Rev. Jackson. "Apple's are a bit better than the others but not by much."