With the backdrop of April 12th being National Equal Pay Day - an event started in 1996 to illustrate the difference that men and women earn as wages in the U.S - Microsoft has announced the results of its hard work on ensuring that all of its employees are paid fairly when it comes to their demographics.
A year and a half ago, our CEO, Satya Nadella, set out three areas of focus for Diversity & Inclusion at Microsoft: recruiting more diverse talent; expanding training to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture; and ensuring equal pay and equal opportunity. At that time, for every $1 earned by men, our female employees in the U.S. earned 99.7 cents at the same job title and level.
That was already remarkable at the time, considering the gender pay gap is normally reported as much higher in most industries, including technology. They have since improved even that already small gap, bringing the numbers to 99.8 cents for every dollar and bringing the racial/ethnic pay gap to 0 when averaged out. There are still some very minor differences when drilling down the demographics, but Microsoft has committed to continuing its goal of eliminating any demographic pay gaps and will continue to publicly disclose the data on its efforts annually.
Source: Microsoft