Google is making moves to diversify its workforce, and it’s doing so by adding thousands of jobs across its U.S. offices, including Chicago.
Sundar Pichai, Google and Alphabet’s CEO, announced in a blog post Thursday that it is adding 10,000 new employees in Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and New York. And the tech giant aims to add 1,000 of those new roles by 2021.
In Google’s other global cities, such as London, the company is also focusing recruiting and hiring more Black workers, but did not attach a number to it.
Earlier this year, Google said it was committed to improving representation of underrepresented groups at senior levels by 30% by 2025. With the new jobs, Google expects to more than double the number of Black employees at all other levels by 2025 and says it is making structural changes to the company to address systemic racism.
"Meaningful, lasting change needs to come from within our own walls," Pichai wrote in the post. "That means looking across the experience of underrepresented Googlers, including Black+, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, and at all of our internal processes, including recruiting, leveling, performance, promotion, talent assessment and retention practices."
Earlier this month, Google announced it was providing $450,000 in non-dilutive cash to six Chicago startups through its Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. The fund is investing $5 million into Black-owned startups throughout the U.S. Google also created a three-month accelerator program for Black founders from across the country.
In addition to the hiring announcement Thursday, Pichai also said Google is setting a goal to spend $100 million with Black-owned businesses, which is part of a broader goal to spend a minimum of $1 billion with diverse-owned suppliers in the U.S., every year starting in 2021.
California.-based Google first came to Chicago in 2000 and has been steadily expanding its local workforce since. Google, which has 1,300 local employees, opened a second office nearby its first in the Fulton Market neighborhood last year. Across the two office buildings, Google employs people in product, engineering, technical infrastructure and finance roles.
