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Google has become the latest high-profile firm to announce a rethink of its DEI practices, informing employees it will scrap diversity hiring targets moving forward.
In an email memo sent to staff Wednesday, the tech giant revealed it will no longer set “aspirational hiring goals” designed to improve the representation of diverse groups in its workforce.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, released its annual report on the same day, removing a commitment to making DEI “part of everything we do,” that was included in reports from 2021 to 2023.
Google is the latest firm to nix diversity hiring initiatives, with a number of US businesses including Amazon, Walmart, and Meta moving to scrap DEI measures in recent months.
What did Google tell employees about move to scrap DEI?
First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the memo to Googlers was sent by Fiona Cicconi, Chief People Officer at Alphabet.
"In 2020, we set aspirational hiring goals and focused on growing our offices outside California and New York to improve representation," Cicconi wrote.
“We’ll continue to invest in states across the U.S.—and in many countries globally—but in the future we will no longer have aspirational goals,” the email memo continued.
In 2020, Google joined a wave of companies to implement DEI measures in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, setting a target to increase the proportion of “leadership representation of underrepresented groups” by 30% before 2025.
When CEO Sundar Pinchai implemented the target, nearly three quarters of the tech giant’s US-based leaders were male, while approximately 96% were white or Asian. 3.7% of its US employees were Black and 5.9% were Latino.
According to Google’s 2024 diversity report, the company progressed toward its representation goals over those four years—5.7% of US employees were Black and over 7.5% were Latino.
From 2019 to 2021, Google increased its annual percentage of black hires in the US from 5.5% to 9.4%, and of Latino hires from 6.6% to 9.0%.
Cicconi explained that the decision to scrap diversity targets came as part of a yearly review of the programs designed to create a “workplace where we hire the best people wherever we operate”—a goal that she said the company remains committed to going forward.
The chief people officer also said that Google’s role as a federal contractor meant it was evaluating changes to its diversity programs “to comply with recent court decisions and U.S. Executive Orders.”
Google: We’re committed to hiring ‘the best people’
In the memo, Cicconi shared more details about what the policy change would mean in practice. She reiterated that Google is committed to “creating a workplace where we hire the best people wherever we operate, create an environment where everyone can thrive, and treat everyone fairly.”
“That’s exactly what you can expect to see going forward,” she asserted. “Our users come from all across the U.S. and around the world, and we serve them better when our employees do, too.”
As well as diversity hiring targets, other DEI-related training schemes and initiatives may be on the chopping block—though, unlike some other companies to axe diversity measures, Google's employee resource groups (ERGs) for underrepresented groups will remain in place, alongside partnerships with colleges and universities.
The role of Google’s Chief Diversity Officer, Melonie Parker, will now include “closely and carefully evaluating programs… including those that raise risk, or that aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped,” the memo said.
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Just under a year ago, Parker told the BBC in an interview about Google’s DEI practices that she was "really proud" of "how we deepened the DEI work following the murder of George Floyd."
Asked about the trend of global companies announcing cuts to DEI, the Google exec said: “The recipe for ensuring a business is the most successful is having people who feel included and like they belong at a company.”
Is government policy shaping approach to DEI measures?
Like Cicconi, other business leaders to scrap DEI measures in recent months have indicated the shift will help them align with the Trump Administration. Following his inauguration on January 20, President Trump ordered the termination of federal DEI programs and encouraged private companies to follow suit.
At Meta, for example, CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently spoke on the company’s move to eliminate all DEI measures. “After the last several years, we now have an opportunity to have a productive partnership with the United States government, and we’re going to take that,” he said.
Meta’s Vice President of HR, Janelle Gale, told employees in an email that the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing.”
Meanwhile, many other businesses are remaining firm on their DEI measures, including Apple and Costco. Both have recently pushed back on shareholder pressure to end diversity and inclusion practices.
