Google said it was pleased to have resolved the issue.
Oakland:
Alphabet Inc’s Google will spend $ 3.8 million, including $ 2.6 million in arrears, to settle allegations that it has falsely passed on women and Asians for job openings, the United States Department of Labor said Monday.
The allegations were the result of a routine compliance check required several years ago by Google’s status as a technology provider to the federal government.
Google said it was pleased to have resolved the issue.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs had found “preliminary indicators” that from 2014 to 2017, Google sometimes underpaid 2,783 women in its software engineering group in Mountain View, California and the Seattle area.
Researchers also found differences in the hiring rates that adversely affected women and Asian candidates in the year ended August 31, 2017 for software engineering positions in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, California, and Kirkland, Washington.
The settlement includes $ 2.6 million in arrears to 5,500 employees and applicants and calls on Google to review its hiring and salary practices.
Google will also set aside $ 1.25 million over the next five years for wage adjustments for engineers in Mountain View, Kirkland, Seattle and New York, according to the settlement. Any unused money is spent on diversity efforts at Google.
The company already conducts annual payroll audits, but like other major technology companies, it remains under public scrutiny for a workforce that does not reflect the makeup of the country in terms of race and gender.
The company said in a statement, “We believe that everyone should be paid based on the work they do, not who they are, and we should invest heavily to make our recruitment and compensation processes fair and unbiased.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV contributors and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)