Google is now being forced to pay up roughly about $3.8 million in order to settle certain allegations when it comes to hiring and pay discrimination. The money would go out to the people they did not hire as well as the unfair and underpaid female engineers.
US Department of Labor fines Google
The US Department of Labor had officially announced the fine. At issue were certain allegations that the company had underpaid certain women engineers somewhat less compared to their own male counterparts. The allegations also included that the hiring process had certain disadvantages for both the woman and the Asian applicants for the software engineering roles.
The Dept of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs or OFCCP had uncovered what it now termed as "systematic" problems over the full course of a certain routine compliance evaluation that was focused on Google's very own Mountain View, Seattle, California, Washington, and the Kirkland, Washington offices in between both 2014 up to 2017.
Google's alleged bias
According to the article by Mashable, it was noted that those millions are not going directly to the Department of Labor but $1.35 million of it will be back pay and interest going to around 2,565 women all working in the engineering positions that were the subject of pay discrimination. The additional $1.23 million is also slated for both the women and Asian applicants.
As noted by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs' very own regional director Jane Suhr noted that regardless of how complex or regardless of the size of the given workforce, it is important to remain committed to enforcing fair and equal opportunity laws in order to ensure equity and non-discrimination within the workforce.
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Google required to hold another $1.25 million
Google has recently agreed to hold aside around another $1.25 million in certain pay-equity adjustments. Bloomberg Law now reports that the "early resolution has been reached by Google and the official Department of Labor which gives the former some sort of extra breathing room. Specifically, it was noted that the latter would not audit the 39 Google locations for about 5 years.
Despite the given mutual nature of the said agreement, Google, has previously fought tooth and nail in order to deprive the government of certain pay and hiring data. Critics had also excoriated Google back in December when it had pushed out Timnit Gebru, a particular AI researcher who had complained in an email towards staff regarding the company's very own paltry efforts to hire additional women, reported by the Platformer.
According to her email, she stated that life gets worse when people start advocating for the underrepresented people. Google is now not the only tech giant that still stands accused of alleged pay discrimination. Back in 2017, the US Department of Labor had also accused Oracle as well for paying Caucasian male workers higher than their counterparts for the exact same jobs.
Related Article: Google AI Researchers Want Timnit Gebru to Come Back at Higher Position Among Other Demands
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo