For women in tech, finding the space that supports them within the tech community can be one of the biggest challenges. But perhaps before women in tech should settle on a company, it’s good to know what other factors contribute to allowing women to thrive in the industry, beyond the office.
With the research done by SmartAsset, it’s found that not only do cities make a difference with what kind of support women are able to get, but that employment numbers and interactions also affect how adaptable women can be into the tech industry.
The report found that compared to last year’s numbers, women “hold less than 26 percent of tech jobs in the U.S. and on average earn just 85 percent of what men in those positions earn.” On top of that, even the top cities for women in tech across the country have low numbers of employment. And with this year’s numbers, there hasn’t been significant progress in the right direction. In fact, prominent companies like Twitter and Google are still lagging behind in increasing their employment numbers for women.
So, what does this mean for the industry as a whole? Largely, it says that we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to making the tech industry truly inclusive. To boost inclusion numbers, it’s not enough for companies to remain stagnant. We must have vigilant effort when it comes to hiring and ensuring that women and other marginalized voices in the industry feel welcome.
Inclusion isn’t just the problem of women in tech; it’s everyone‘s problem to take on, together.