According to the World Bank in 2017 women make 39.35% of the world’s workforce. A closer look through the different sectors in a Payscale report shows that while the non-tech industries remain well-balanced, the tech sector is significantly male-dominated. Women represent only 17,1% of the total tech workforce as stated in Hackerrank’s recent report. The gender gap is getting even more noticeable within the senior and executive positions as reported by Payscale.
The Bulgarian landscape does not differ much from the global tendencies. While the total female workforce in the country for 2017 is slightly above the average – 46,5%, the women engaged in the tech sector are only 16,5%.
Why does the Tech sector need more women?
- Women are leading tech adopters. We all depend on technology in our everyday life, but it turns out that women are the more active tech users. Therefore, the sector needs more women working in it representing their needs and requirements. In addition to this, having higher diversity rate also means having various perspectives and generating diverse ideas.
- The tech industry is constantly growing and requires more capable workforce. The lack of qualified engineers and developers is progressively increasing worldwide and impacting companies’ abilities to grow and innovate. Attracting more women to the sector would contribute to the expansion of the professional tech community which would positively reflect the overall growth of the sector.
- Companies with higher diversity rate perform better financially. As a business unit, every company strives for constant growth and improved financial results. A study by McKinsey shows that companies with higher gender diversity are 15% more likely to have higher financial returns than their representative national medians.
As a technology company that helps its clients to expand their development capacity by building dedicated teams in Eastern Europe, Questers is actively involved in the life of the local tech community and supporting its constant growth through various educational and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
Furthermore, we’ve managed to reach a share of 22,8% female employees and are taking constant measures to ensure higher gender diversity and equal employment opportunities. To learn more about our efforts towards gender diversity read what Mariya Beleva, a Java Developer, shared about her career growth opportunities at the company.