International Women’s Day is commemorated every year on March 8 to raise awareness for women’s rights, equality, safety and justice.

This year, the United Nations celebrated International Women’s Day under the official theme #BalanceforBetter, advocating a more gender-balanced world.

While the tech industry tends to take pride in changing the world as we know it, this sector is still lagging behind when it comes to gender equality. 

In the US, while the percentage of women in the labour force has gradually climbed to 46.8 percent over the past decades, it is still significantly lower in the tech sector.

This is clearly demonstrated in this 2018 employment chart featuring some of the world’s largest tech companies.

While women are gaining more general employment opportunities with major tech companies, the percentage is much lower when it comes to actual tech jobs.

At Microsoft, female employees make up only 20 percent of the company’s tech workforce and only 27 percent of the total workforce.

The story is much the same at Google (only 21% of females work in tech jobs), Apple (23%), facebook (22%) and Twitter (17%).

In terms of leadership positions, the status of women in the technology sector, as represented by the eight companies in this chart, is roughly on par with the rest of the economy. 

In 2015, women held 25 percent of executive, senior-level and management positions in S&P 500 companies – a percentage many tech companies match or exceed, but one that is still far from parity.

Source: Statista