Apple's Workforce Became Slightly Less White And Male In 2015

Apple Inc has made progress on boosting gender and racial diversity in its U.S. workforce, a regulatory document filed by the iPhone maker showed.

Several Silicon Valley companies have been criticized for the lack of diversity and have been facing increasing pressure to diversify their largely male, mostly white workforces.

Apple added 1,475 black employees in the thirteen months ended Aug. 1, 31 percent more than a year earlier, the filing showed on Tuesday.

The company added 24 percent more Hispanic workers and 29 percent more Asians, compared with numbers reported in a July 2014 filing.

Black employees formed 8.7 percent of the total U.S. workforce as of August, rising slightly from 8 percent in the previous period.

About 30 percent of Apple's U.S. employees were females as of August, compared with 28.7 percent.

Of the 103 executive and senior management positions, 86 were held by white employees, 12 by Asians, 4 by black employees and 1 by a hispanic, the document filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission showed.

Overall, Apple had 72,494 U.S. employees as of August, up 21.1 percent from the previous period.

Twitter, in its most recent report on worker demographics, said 66 percent of its global workforce was male and 59 percent of U.S. employees were white.

(Reporting by Sai Sachin R in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)