Google denies Labor Department accusation of 'systemic compensation disparities against women'

(Image credit: Josh Edelson/Getty Images)

last updated 9 April 2017

A U.S. Department of Labor official on Friday accused Google of a widespread gender pay gap among its employees. "We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," said Janette Whipper, a Labor Department regional director, in court testimony.

Though the "investigation is not complete," added another Labor official, Janet Herold, the "government’s analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry." About a third of Google's 70,000 workers are women.

Google roundly rejected the allegations. "We vehemently disagree with Ms. Whipper's claim," the company said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. "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."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.