Women bear the brunt of technology job cuts
Trawling the web looking for an interesting subject to write about, I came across an article on ITPro, the content of which, I must admit, did not present the technology industry in a particularly good light. In fact, at first glance, it appeared pretty damning and shocking.
Quoting analysis in the UK by Integro Accounting, it reported that the percentage of women tech employees in the UK has fallen for the first time since 2018. The number of female employees in the technology sector fell by 6.5% to 359,154.
This is not an isolated finding for the UK. A quick search on Google brings up a depressingly long list of articles and stories about the over-representation of women in the numbers of people laid off by the tech industry.
Even more shocking is the finding in a recent article by Techopedia that the share of women working in tech globally is now lower than it was in 1984, down from 35% to 32%. It’s worse in the EU. According to McKinsey, women fill only 22% of tech roles in European companies and the number could fall further. More than a third (37%) of women said they had been discriminated against at work.
The slew of damning statistics listed by Techopedia also included the fact that the percentage of women in leadership roles in the industry had fallen to 28% and that half of all women in tech roles leave them by the age of 35. That may possibly be related to another statistic: 32% of women in technical and engineering “roles are often the only woman in the room at work”. It might also be connected to the ‘bro culture’. Techopedia cites a Trust Radius report from 2021 that found “an average of 72% of women in tech have worked at a company where ‘bro culture’ was pervasive”.
At a time when two of the wealthiest and most high-profile male leaders in tech – Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg – are currently engaged in what can only be described as very ‘bro-like’ behaviour, it is perhaps not entirely unsurprising that women should be put off from staying in it.
Separately, the WomenTech Network cites research that suggests women are 1.6 times more likely to be laid off than men, primarily because of “their persistent lack of seniority compared with male colleagues in the sector”.
According to WomenTech Network’s own research, 69.2% of those laid off during the tech job cuts in 2022 were women. “This figure is deeply concerning and shows the disproportionate impact of layoffs on women in tech,” it says, adding that there is an “urgent need to take action to ensure that more equitable opportunities are available for women in tech. We must work together to create more inclusive workplaces, where women can have equal access to job opportunities and resources”.
There have been suggestions that the effect of the disproportionate number of women being axed by the tech industry will damage its efforts to hit targets for gender equality and diversity. Well, duh.
If the industry is starting from a position where female representation is already well below that of other sectors, it’s not going to get anywhere if it keeps cutting the jobs of a higher proportion of women than men. This is especially true if the brunt is felt by those in less senior roles, where the share of women is higher. The possibility of progressing further up the ladder is made much harder if people keep cutting the first rung out from under you just as you’ve placed your foot on it.
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers