The most innovative company must also be the most diverse.

At Apple, we take a holistic view of diversity that looks beyond the usual measurements. A view that includes the varied perspectives of our employees as well as app developers, suppliers, and anyone who aspires to a future in tech. Because we know new ideas come from diverse ways of seeing things.

Divya

Divya Nag knew technology could make a difference in health care. So she founded two groundbreaking medical companies by the time she was 20 years old. Then she brought that start-up spirit to Apple and began investigating how our products could do two things: improve medical research and deliver personalized health care.

She interviewed doctors, patients, and professors about their experiences with medical studies. She spotted three key hurdles: Participation numbers were low. Tests were conducted infrequently. And patients often had to guess at their answers. Divya realized that if there were medical research apps for iPhone — the powerful technology millions of people always have with them — researchers could make discoveries on a much larger scale. She worked with engineers and developers to build, test, and launch the open source framework ResearchKit.

Shortly after ResearchKit, Divya and her team created CareKit. It helps patients record accurate data, track symptoms, and share the information with their doctors.

Helped design ResearchKit and CareKit, which changed the way doctors and patients stay connected.

Read more about Divya.

Ryan

After three years as a Specialist in the Apple Store, Ryan Dour joined our Accessibility engineering team. Every day, he rigorously tests the features on our devices to make sure people of all abilities can take advantage of our technology.

Even though Ryan’s focus is on testing products, he often comes up with ideas for them. Based on his own experience, he knew the value of handwriting recognition as a way for blind users to enter text, instead of using a keyboard. Ryan worked closely with his colleagues on the Accessibility and Core Recognition teams to deliver and patent the world’s first built-in handwriting interaction designed specifically for the visually impaired.

And as a DJ for more than 15 years, Ryan even has the opportunity to use his expert ear at Apple. He creates and records sounds for VoiceOver, our built-in screen reader. These custom sounds are used to indicate elements such as links on websites.

Helped develop the first built-in handwriting interaction designed for the visually impaired.

Read more about Ryan.

Adrienne

Adrienne Huffman is a hardware engineer with a knack for spotting bugs. While she was doing an assessment of the electrical wiring inside Apple TV, she noticed a signal glitch that occurred while the product was starting up or resetting. She examined it and discovered a voltage issue, so her team implemented the hardware to fix it.

Adrienne has even come up with new ways for our products to work. While testing the latest AirPort Time Capsule, she had an idea for how it could save power. So she tested her theory by modifying the software, which our software team integrated into the product.

Discovered new ways for AirPort Time Capsule to save energy.

Read more about Adrienne.

Aurelio

Ancient astronomers tracked the movement of the sun, moon, and planets to tell time. Aurelio Guzman is part of the Human Interface Design team that set out to honor this ancient form of timekeeping by creating a face for Apple Watch.

To bring the solar system to your wrist, Aurelio worked with other designers, engineers, and an astrophysicist. Together they created a precise digital model of the planets’ orbits around the sun. Aurelio also designed a way to show the sun’s light moving across the earth, moon, and planets based on their exact positions. The result is a face that displays the correct shadowing of the earth and phases of the moon, and can even give you a custom flight path between the two depending on your location and the time of day.

Changed the way people look at time on Apple Watch.

Read more about Aurelio.

Edith

Edith Arnold is an expert in human movement — she has a PhD in neuromuscular biomechanics. She also happens to be a mechanical engineer, which means she has the ability to turn her scientific research into useful technology. At Apple, she researched and then helped build the Apple Watch features that calculate the calories a person burns while walking or running.

To create technology that works for every body type, ability, terrain, and way of moving through the world, Edith had to do a lot of experimenting and analysis. She worked with other Apple teams to develop an incredible number of physical fitness tests, conduct thousands of trials in our exercise lab, and build computer simulations to design the best, most robust algorithms. As a result, they were able to determine the precise combination of Apple Watch sensors and movement models that would predict a person’s exertion.

Built the algorithm for Apple Watch that helps people track the calories they burn.

Read more about Edith.

Riad

To make a processor chip, one group of engineers creates the blueprint, and another group of engineers builds it. And though Riad Kaced began his career building chips, he realized that he wanted to collaborate, support, and troubleshoot with his teammates by making the blueprints that guide them.

At Apple, Riad works hand in hand with developers and designers to create our A8 and A9 chips. He makes custom automations for iPhone and iPad, which have reduced the time it takes to design the chips. Riad also built an internal platform that consolidated his team’s design programs into one ecosystem. This provided a new, streamlined way for engineers, designers, and developers to collaborate.

Created tools that help Apple engineers design chips for iPhone and iPad.

Read more about Riad.

Charissa

Charissa Rujanavech invented Liam, our line of robots that can take apart iPhone so its components can be better recycled. And she did it without a background in robotics.

Charissa started out in ecology, where she learned how nothing in nature truly goes to waste. Then she joined the apparel industry, where she explored new ways to design and manufacture products sustainably. It was this ability to think holistically about the life cycle of a product that helped Charissa envision a new way to recycle electronics at Apple.

She imagined a robot that could disassemble iPhone quickly and precisely while maintaining the purity of its resources. That way, its high-quality materials could easily be reused. So she identified the most environmentally critical parts to remove, then worked closely with mechanical and automation engineers to sketch a line of robots that could do the job with incredible precision. After much trial and error, she and her tiny team created Liam, the disassembly line capable of taking apart over a million phones a year.

Invented Liam, our line of robots that take apart iPhone for recycling.

Read more about Charissa.

Kully

All Kully Mandon’s friends got degrees in computer science. So when he got his in architecture, he never expected to end up in tech, too. After years of developing museums, homes, and hotels, Kully joined Apple, where he creates fixtures and furniture for the Apple Store.

Kully worked on streamlining the design of the Genius Bar tables. He envisioned a new way to bring power to the table — one that would provide access to power outlets when they’re needed, and hide them when they aren’t. So he designed a motorized cutout at the center of the table that can sense motion, then rotate up to expose the outlets and down to conceal them. Kully then worked with furniture fabricators and mechanical engineers to build it and bring it to our stores.

Created power outlets that appear when you wave your hand over certain tables in the Apple Store.

Read more about Kully.

Diversity is more than any one gender, race, or ethnicity. It’s richly representative of all people, all backgrounds, and all perspectives. It is the entire human experience.

Denise Young Smith

Vice President of Worldwide Human Resources

We want Apple to be a reflection of the world around us.

These numbers show our progress and represent our ongoing commitment to greater inclusion and diversity.

Representation among new hires.

We strive to better represent the communities we’re part of. We believe this will help to break down historical barriers in tech.

Global female

37%
New hires
32%
Current employees

U.S. underrepresented minorities (URMs)*

27%
New hires
22%
Current employees

Underrepresented minorities are groups whose representation in tech has been historically low — Black, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander. New hires are employees hired within the past 12 months. Data as of June 2016.**

Our hiring trend
over the past three years.

We’re steadily attracting more and more underrepresented talent.

Global femaleNew hires

31%
2014
35%
2015
37%
2016

U.S. URMsNew hires

21%
2014
24%
2015
27%
2016

New hires are employees hired during the 12‑month period ending in June of each year.

Representation among different ethnicities.

Our new hires are more diverse than our current employees.

54%

Percentage of new hires in the United States who are minorities.

New hire Asian
24%
Current employee Asian
19%
New hire Black
13%
Current employee Black
9%
New hire Hispanic
13%
Current employee Hispanic
12%
New hire Multitracial
4%
Current employee Multitracial
2%
New hire other
1%
Current employee other
1%
New hire White
46%
Current employee White
56%

“Other” includes Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander. Data as of June 2016.**

Pay equity at Apple.

Equal work deserves equal pay. This past year, we looked at the total compensation for U.S. employees and closed the gaps we found. We’re now analyzing the salaries, bonuses, and annual stock grants of all our employees worldwide. If a gap exists, we’ll address it. And we’ll continue our work to make sure we maintain pay equity.

$1

We’ve achieved pay equity in the United States for similar roles and performance. Women earn one dollar for every dollar male employees earn. And underrepresented minorities earn one dollar for every dollar white employees earn.

Data as of August 2016.**

Creating a culture of inclusion.

We see diversity as everything that makes an employee who they are. We foster a diverse culture that’s inclusive of disability, religious belief, sexual orientation, and service to country. We want all employees to be comfortable bringing their entire selves to work every day. Because we believe our individual backgrounds, perspectives, and passions help us create the ideas that move all of us forward.

Creating an inclusive culture takes both commitment and action. We’re helping employees identify and address unconscious racial and gender bias. We’re cultivating diverse leadership and tech talent. We’re continuing our advocacy for LGBTQ equality, investing in resources for Veterans and service members and their families, and exploring new ways to support employees with disabilities. We’re also strengthening our common bonds through on-campus groups, events, and programs.

Our Diversity Network Associations (DNAs) have existed for decades. These are groups where employees can make connections that create trust and a feeling of belonging. Where everyone can find community and feel supported.

African American Employee Association
Agnostic Community at Apple
Amigos@Apple
Apple Asian Association
Apple Christian Fellowship
Apple Indian Association
Apple Jewish Association
Apple Muslim Association
Apple Veterans Association
Pride@Apple
Women@Apple

It doesn’t feel like work to come in and be myself. I get to have fun connecting with everyone around me, whether it’s my customers or my team.

Chelsea White

Apple Union Square, San Francisco

Alia Thomas, Chelsea White, Khadijah White

Data from the last three years.

Global gender 2016

68%
32%

U.S. race and ethnicity 2016

19%
9%
12%
2%
1%
0%
56%

The population of employees whose race or ethnicity is undeclared this year is less than 1 percent. This decrease comes as the result of stronger internal processes and employees properly identifying themselves. Because the majority of our previously undeclared employees identified as White, the decrease had no impact on the representation rates for any other group. Data as of June 2016.**

Data as of June 2015.**

Gender data as of August 2014. Race and Ethnicity data as of June 2014.**

Our most recently filed Federal Employer Information Report EEO-1 is available for download below, representing employees as of July 2016. We make the document publicly available, but it’s not how we measure our progress. The EEO-1 has not kept pace with changes in industry or the American workforce over the past half century. We believe the information we report elsewhere on this site is a far more accurate reflection of our progress toward diversity.

Download Employer Information Report EEO-1