Activision Blizzard reveals that just 24% of its employees are women

Activision Blizzard’s Chief Operating Officer Daniel Alegre released a statement to employees today about representation along with company demographic data. The results aren’t exactly great, as it revealed that just 24% of the entire company identifies as female and this year’s hiring demographics don’t indicate an effort toward meaningful change.

Industry comparisons — In the report, Activision Blizzard focused on female representation data and racial minority representation data, offering statistics on the company as a whole as well as broken down into metrics on ABCorporate, Activision Publishing, Blizzard and King. But the report emphasizes a comparison among gaming companies instead of to actual US demographics. This paints a false picture that suggests the company isn’t lagging behind when it comes to gender or racial diversity.

Women are leaving — Activision Blizzard has been accused of having a “frat boy workplace culture” that negatively affects its female employees. According to the company report, nearly 50% of all employees who left the company this year were women.

National demographics — Women represent 50.8% of the US population but are significantly underrepresented at Activision Blizzard, as they make up just 24% of all full-time employees. Men, on the other hand, are dramatically overrepresented, making up 49.2% of the total US population but are 76% of all full-time employees.

At Blizzard specifically, gender representation is even more unbalanced. Nearly 80% of all Blizzard employees are male and are the overwhelming gender majority at every level of the company.

Activision Publishing has the least amount of gender diversity, with over 83% men and just 17% women. These numbers are pretty abysmal, considering the fact that there are actually more women than men in the US and women statistically make up 45% of all gamers.

New hires — This year, only 29% of all Activision Blizzard hires were women. At Activision Publishing and Blizzard, the percentage of female hires in 2021 was 20% and 29%, respectively. These numbers could be a lot higher, considering the COO admitted all of the numbers given are “wholly inadequate” and that the company has “a lot of work to do.”

Future goals — These statistics were released in the spirit of transparency to help hold Activision Blizzard “accountable for progress where needed,” wrote Activision Blizzard’s COO. Alegre also reminded employees that over the next five years, the company is committed to increasing female and non-binary representation by 50%. This means that Blizzard is looking to raise its percentage of female employees from 24% to 33%, which isn’t much of a goal.

What does gender equality look like? — Gender equality is about more than just a few hires — it’s about onboarding and promoting women into senior executive leadership roles, providing equal pay and benefits for equal work and hiring more female employees across all departments, including engineering.

While data transparency is a good first step, Activision Blizzard still has a long way to go to earn back lost trust.