Women Solution Provider Execs Cheer Apple's Move To Close The Wage Gap

Women solution providers applauded Apple’s report this week that female and male employees who work for the tech giant’s U.S. operations are now paid equally.

As recently as February, Apple CEO Tim Cook had said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company still had a wage gap between women and men employed at the company.

That gap -- which saw women earn 99.6 cents to the dollar that men earned -- has now been closed, Apple indicated in a new report on its website.

At Edge Solutions, a solutions provider based in Alpharetta, Ga., CEO Julie Haley said it's good to see progress on wage parity at such an important company in the tech world.

’People use Apple as the gold standard right now for technology companies,’ Haley told CRN. "It’s great for all technology leaders to see that as an example to follow."

At Denver-based solution provider Optiv, D‎irector of Distribution and Vendor Alliances Wendy Hoey called the move by Apple ’a big deal’ for the tech industry.

’It’s great news for equality,’ Hoey said, although she added that for many women in the workplace it’s tough to know if wage disparities even exist at their organization. Compensation is a ’very private thing,’ she said. ’How do you truly know if you are actually suffering from that same challenge?’

Thus, more tech companies ought to follow Apple’s example and open up about wage parity issues in their organization, Hoey said.

On its website, Apple said that ’this past year, we looked at the total compensation for U.S. employees and closed the gaps we found. We’re now analyzing the salaries, bonuses and annual stock grants of all our employees worldwide. If a gap exists, we’ll address it.’

Companies ’have to really work at fairness," Haley said. "It’s something you have to constantly examine. Because there are a lot of unconscious biases that we grow up with that we have to overcome if we’re going to truly be a gender-blind tech culture.’

Apple also reported that it inched upward in terms of the percentage of new hires and overall employees that are women.

The company said that globally, 37 percent of its new hires over the past year have been women, up from 35 percent a year ago and 31 percent as of 2014.

Apple said 32 percent of its total global employees are women currently, compared to 31 percent in 2015 and 30 percent in 2014.