Boston, MA 08/21/2014 (wallstreetpr) –Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P), a leading online music streaming company that boasts more than 76 million active listeners, may have more questions than answers when asked to talk about its staff racial diversity. The company joined other technology companies that include Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to release diversity data.
According to the data, Pandora’s employees are mostly white. Although that has been seen in almost all the other tech companies that have issued their staff diversity data, Pandora’s location in Oakland, one of the most racially diverse places in the country, makes it hard to explain the big racial disparity in its workforce.
Staff racial disparity
Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P)’s diversity data show that at the technical level, the company’s staff is 62% white, 26% Asian, 3.9% Hispanic and 2.8% black. It has less than 18% female staff at the technical level. The company has white taking up 73.4% of its non-technical jobs, 8.5% Asian and 3% black. Its gender balance in the non-technical positions is, however, clean because 58% of those positions are held by women. At the leadership level Pandora has 84.6% of the staff being white, 6.3% Hispanics, 5.7% Asian and 1.1% black. Women take up 38.8% leadership roles at Pandora.
Higher call to practice diversity
According to Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of those who are leading the charge for racial diversity in the tech industry, Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) has a greater obligation to have a more diverse workforce community than many other tech companies because of the location in Oakland. However, the company doesn’t stand out from the crowd in terms of racial balance. Oakland has 34% white, 25% Hispanic, 28% black and 17% Asian.
With more than 76 million active users, Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) has a quarter of that user-based being Hispanic, according to the data supplied by ComScore. Also, the company relies so much on the music powered mostly by Hispanic and black artists.
