Google to pay $118 million over gender wage gap lawsuit
Sounds like a lot, but think of how many women that payout is being shared between.
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In the culmination of a recent class action lawsuit over Google’s gender discrimination pay gap, plaintiffs have finally reached an agreement with the company. Google will pay the affected employees $118 million, and supervised changes are to be made within the company.
Back in 2017, Google’s vice president of people operationsEileen Naughton responded to accusationsthat female employees werepaid ‘systematically’ less than menin similar roles. The US Department of Labor (DoL) then asked Google tohand over salary recordsfor a government audit, and the case snowballed from there.
It’s taken until 2022 to get to the bottom of it, and finally a settlement has been made. It’s important to note, though, while $118 million might sound like a lot, that amount will need to cover around 15,500 employees across 236 job titles. If you do the math, the total equates to a meagre $7,613 payout to each individual.
Considering analyst David Neumark’s approximation that Google has been paying women $16,794 less per year than “the similarly-situated man,” according to a May 2021Business Standard article, that doesn’t seem like a very large dent in the damages.
However, along with the agreed remuneration, Google is now required to have analysts and economists involved in their processes, in a bid to get the company policies in line with ethical standards.
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The changes will includes having an independent, third-party analyst help the company figure out fairer leveling-at-hire practices. And all this will be supervised by an external Settlement Monitor over the three years to come.
AsBusiness Wire(viaSweclockers) notes, Plantiff Holly Please—a ten year veteran of the company—is convinced the settlement is a positive one, at least. “As a woman who’s spent her entire career in the tech industry, I’m optimistic that the actions Google has agreed to take as part of this settlement will ensure more equity for women.”
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Please also says that “Google, since its founding, has led the tech industry. They also have an opportunity to lead the charge to ensure inclusion and equity for women in tech.”
Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been rambling about games, tech and science—rather sarcastically—for four years since. She can be found admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. Right now she’s waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.
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