After a draw - out engagement , the U.S. Department of Labor ’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs hasfinally settledwith Google , which will now pay out or set aside $ 3.8 million to remedy allegation it discriminated against over 5,000 woman and Asian technologist . Over $ 2.5 million of that will go directly to the workers . It ’s a prissy newspaper headline , but it ’ll take at least a few more zeros for Google to palpate enough pain to exchange its ways .
In thesettlement , the DoL says that it found that Google yield woman software mastermind less than their male person counterparts , and that Google was less likely to hire fair sex and Asiatic candidate . Speaking about the case back in 2017 , DoL regional canvasser Janet Herold toldthe Guardianthat the agency had launch evidence that Google ’s discrimination against women was “ quite extreme , ” even for the tech industry . ( The Guardian subsequently reported that Googlehad triedto get the case discombobulate out because Herold verbalize to the composition . )
The cost breaks down like this : $ 1.3 million in back earnings to char locomotive engineer who were subject to pay discrimination ; $ 1.2 million to woman and Asiatic applicants who were n’t hired ; and $ 1.25 million determine away to make salary equity .

Photo: Amy Osborne (Getty Images)
The settlement unfortunately does not contain any hard data for us to orient to on the severity of the discrimination . But there ’s a useful parallel in an on-going sex discriminationlawsuitbrought by four former employees against Google . The plaintiffs in that case commissioned a salary analysis from University of California Irvine economics professor David Neumark , which foundthat between 2014 and 2018 cleaning woman across the entire company made on modal $ 16,794 less per year than men — and $ 1,900 less on average than humankind in identical “ line codes . ” ( The complaint states that Google had based employee wage on pay at their previous occupation , which allegedly perpetuated this systemic pay col . ) The plaintiff have asked the royal court to approveclass - natural process statusto include 10,000 cleaning woman .
Last year , Google ’s vice president of hoi polloi surgery Eileen Naughtontold Bloombergthat the allegations in the cause are “ wild ” and that Google regularly analyzes and correct gender - based wage disparity . ostensibly , the DoL does n’t agree .
Googlers have longrecountedinstances of inner racial favoritism , and as of June 2020 white peoplemade upthe majority of company leading . In aJune 2020 letter of the alphabet , Google CEO Sundar Pichai pledged that the company would work on improving racial diversity on the executive level , and tally a “ talent contact ” to each sector of the troupe to hire and retain more members of “ underrepresented groups . ”

In an e-mail to Gizmodo , the Department of Labor declined to gloss further . Gizmodo has reached out to Google and will update the post if we hear back .
Update 2025-04-15 8:32am ET : A Google interpreter provided the espouse assertion in an electronic mail to Gizmodo :
“ We believe everyone should be paid based upon the work they do , not who they are , and invest to a great extent to make our hiring and compensation processes fair and unbiased . For the past eight geezerhood , we have run yearly intimate wage equity analysis to identify and address any discrepancies . We ’re proud of to have resolve this matter related to allegations from the 2014 - 2017 audits and persist committed to diversity and equity and to support our people in a style that allows them to do their full work . ”

Alphabet Inc. CompaniesGoogleLaw , CrimeSundar Pichai
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