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Diversity

Google's DEI Rollback: Aspirational Hiring Targets Dropped

On February 5, 2025, Google told staff it would no longer have aspirational hiring goals, citing its status as a federal contractor. What changed, and what the data showed.

By The WokeCorp Team Updated October 15, 2026
Google's logo in coloured neon lights against a dark wall
Google dropped its aspirational hiring goals in February 2025 and cut a diversity commitment from its annual SEC filing, citing federal contractor rules. · Photo via Unsplash. Unsplash License.

Google set aspirational hiring goals in 2020, and CEO Sundar Pichai set a target of 30% more leaders from underrepresented groups by 2025. On February 5, 2025, the company told staff those goals were over.

“In the future we will no longer have aspirational goals,” chief people officer Fiona Cicconi wrote in an email to staff reported by Reuters.

Key findings

  • Google ended the aspirational hiring goals it set in 2020.
  • Cicconi tied the change to Google’s status as a federal contractor and to recent court decisions and executive orders.
  • Alphabet’s annual 10-K dropped a line, present from 2021 to 2024, committing the company to make DEI part of everything it does.
  • Google said it was evaluating whether to keep publishing its annual diversity report and running DEI grants and training.
  • Employee groups including the Black Googler Network, Trans at Google and the Disability Alliance stayed in place.
  • Google’s leadership changed only modestly over the period of the goals, by the company’s own figures.

What did Google actually end?

“Aspirational hiring goals” is a term of art. An aspirational goal says the company wants representation to move from one level to another over a period. It is not a quota and does not require hiring a set number of people from any group. It shapes how recruiters plan outreach and how managers are held to account.

Google ended those goals and removed the DEI commitment from its SEC filing in the same week. A spokesperson told Reuters the filing line was removed to reflect the company’s review of its DEI programs.

The federal contractor context

Google sells cloud computing and other services to the US government. The January 2025 executive orders told federal contractors to certify they run no DEI programs the administration considers unlawful, and Cicconi’s email cited exactly that: because Google is a federal contractor, its teams were evaluating the changes required.

That makes the federal tie the company’s stated reason, not an inference. It does not explain the 10-K change on its own, since the filing speaks to every investor, but it is the reason Google gave.

Professionals of various backgrounds working together at computers in an office

Black and Hispanic employees remain significantly underrepresented in technical roles at major technology companies relative to the broader labor market. Google’s own diversity reports tracked this gap annually for ten years before the program review began. Photo: fauxels via Pexels. Pexels License.

What the diversity data showed

Google’s own diversity report is the best measure of what the goals achieved. Black representation in leadership rose from 2.6% in 2020 to 5.1% in 2024. Hispanic representation went from 3.7% to 4.3%. Women in leadership rose from 26.7% to 32.8%.

In a 2024 interview with the BBC, then chief diversity officer Melonie Parker said the company had reached 60% of its five-year goals, and an Alphabet spokesperson said there were no updated figures on Pichai’s target. Critics read numbers like these as evidence the programs underdelivered; supporters read them as evidence the work was unfinished. The data supports either reading, and neither is forced by it.

The Human Rights Campaign's headquarters in Washington, with a Black Lives Matter banner on its facade

The Human Rights Campaign’s headquarters in Washington. The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index has been a primary external benchmark for corporate LGBTQ+ inclusion since 2002. Several major companies withdrew from the index in late 2024 and early 2025 amid the broader DEI rollback wave. Photo: Kurt Kaiser via Wikimedia Commons. CC0.

The companies that went the other way

Costco is the clearest contrast. On January 23, 2025, two weeks before Google’s email, 98% of Costco shareholders rejected a National Center for Public Policy Research proposal that pushed the retailer toward rolling back its diversity work. Costco’s board had defended its DEI work as good for business.

Google’s employee groups survived its change, and so did the diversity report, at least while the company evaluated it. What ended were the goals and the public commitment in the filing.

The WokeCorp assessment

The commitment. A named five-year leadership target, aspirational hiring goals and a DEI commitment written into the annual SEC filing for four straight years.

The reversal. The goals ended and the filing line came out in February 2025, with federal contractor compliance as the stated reason.

The progress question. By Google’s own figures, leadership representation moved but did not transform over the life of the goals. Ending them answers the compliance question. It does not say what replaces them.

The Googleplex with a rainbow-coloured Google logo on its glass facade

The Googleplex with a rainbow logo for Pride month in 2015. Silicon Valley’s glass-and-steel campuses became focal points for corporate DEI debates as tech companies reassessed their commitments in 2024. Photo: Grendelkhan via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Sources

  • Reuters via RTÉ, “Google scraps diversity-based hiring goals,” February 6, 2025. Read October 2026.
  • Associated Press via Indianapolis Business Journal, February 2025. Read October 2026.
  • NPR on the Costco shareholder vote, January 23, 2025. Read October 2026.