Unbelievable! Twitter reveals only 49 of its 3,000 US employees are black

There was a little outrage on Twitter yesterday, when Twitter announced that it has only 49 black employees out of 2,910 staff members in America. The black employees comprising of 35 men and 14 women accounts for only 1.7 % of the firm's US operation, which is 93.8% white or Asian. This figure represents a stark lack of progress since last year, when Twitters senior executives promised to boost their number of African American staff from 2 %.

Drawing back the figures released in a compulsory Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) report on Wednesday, Rev Jesse Jackson said people are 'becoming intolerant' of the stilted progress.

'Black people are greater users of the product and capable of doing the jobs, but there has not been an adequate commitment to hire, train and maintain black people,' the civil rights leader, who is spearheading calls for diversity in tech, says 

Rev Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/Push Coalition, who has campaigned for tech companies to be more open about their lack of minority employees, said that black community are “becoming intolerant” of Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies’ lack of progress in making their offices more diverse.

The low number of black employees comes despite Twitters repeated pledges to make its staff better reflect the diversity of its 302 million users and as the company actively exploits its large number of minority users to bring in more advertising revenue.