IT hiring still favours men over women

Although diversity has been the flavour of the corporates lately especially in tech domain ensuing the focus on breaking the glass ceiling and having females roped in for significant tech roles, the numbers do not really reflect the reality.  

In the fastest-growing list of new career opportunities in India including Machine Learning Engineer, Recruitment Associate, Data Science Specialist among others, there is a worrying gender imbalance for hires made in 2021, stated a LinkedIn report.  

Also read: 5 tech jobs that will be in demand in 2022

Out of the 15 fastest growing jobs listed, which are Affiliate Marketing Specialist, Site Reliability Engineer, Molecular Biologist, Wellness Specialist, User Experience Researcher, Machine Learning Engineer, Recruitment Associate, Data Science Specialist, Chief Legal Officer, E-business Manager, Back End Developer, Media Buyer, Strategy Associate, Business Development Representative and Service Analyst; men constituted at least 70% of hires for IT roles such as Site Reliability Engineer (79%) and Machine Learning Engineer (78%); and Marketing & Advertising roles such as Affiliate Marketing Specialist (68%) and Media Buyer (67%), the report pointed out.

The four roles that saw more women being hired include Wellness Specialist (54%), User Experience Researcher (60%), Recruitment Associate (68%), and Strategy Associate (60%). Overall, more men were hired for IT and Marketing & Advertising roles as compared to women, it said.

According to the survey, working women (37%) are 1.3 times more likely to quit their current job due to poor work-life balance, when compared to working men (28%). They are also more likely (49%) to say they will remain with their current employer if they get better pay, when compared to working men (39%). This may be a wake-up call for employers to revisit their compensation benefits and ensure more inclusivity through their offerings.  

Also read: 82% India’s workforce considering changing their jobs in 2022: LinkedIn

Gender diversity statistics for the technology associates deployed by Quess IT Staffing, shows male to lead with 67% and female at 33%. These percentages are as of January 2022. The data is derived from the algorithm build into the company’s application tracking system which maps and matches all candidates.

A Zinnov-Intel study titled, ‘Zinnov-Intel India Gender Diversity Benchmark’ in 2019 stated that there is 30% representation of women in corporate India, with 31% and 26% representation within non-technical and technical roles respectively. From then till now, not much seems to have picked up over the years.