Google denies gender pay discrimination claims

The US Department of Labor has accused Google of discriminating against female staff. 

The department said it has found that the company underpays its female workers, according to a Guardian report, in violation of federal laws. Google denies the claims.

"The investigation is not complete," regional solicitor for the DoL, Janet Herold, told the Guardian, "but at this point, the department has received compelling evidence of very significant discrimination against women in the most common positions at Google headquarters."

"The government's analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry," she added.

Regional director Janette Wipper testified in a San Francisco court last Friday that the department had discovered "systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce", according to the Guardian.

Wipper claimed that a snapshot of salaries from 2015 showed evidence of disparities and that the government needed access to further payroll data, as well as confidential employee interviews, in order to successfully pinpoint the cause of the issue.

"We vehemently disagree with Ms Wipper's claim," a Google spokesperson said. "Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap. Other than making an unfounded statement which we heard for the first time in court, the DoL hasn't provided any data, or shared its methodology."

Google supplies services to the federal government as a contractor, meaning that it can be compelled by the government to hand over records of employee information, salary history and other data in accordance with compliance laws.

However, the DoL claims that Google has consistently failed to release the data, forcing the department to issue a lawsuit against the company in January. A company spokesperson told Reuters that the requests were "overbroad in scope, or reveal confidential data".

Google could face some serious consequences if the suit does not go its way; the DoL has asked the court to cancel all the company's existing federal contracts and bar it from future government business if it does not comply with the department's requests.

These accusations are the latest reference to Silicon Valley's systemic discrimination problem. Tech companies like Uber have found themselves in hot water in recent months over allegations that they are allowing sexist behaviour to run rampant throughout their organisations.