Recently, our analysts were the first to uncover the disclosure of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2021 EEO-1 report, which includes workforce data for its collective companies, categorized by gender, race/ethnicity, and job function.
The conglomerate, which owns and operates dozens of major brands, including Duracell, GEICO, NetJets, Fruit of the Loom, and Dairy Queen, has long resisted the disclosure of this data. The last major push came at Berkshire Hathaway’s last annual meeting, when Warren Buffett opposed As You Sow’s request for this data. Buffett fought back, saying its unreasonable to expect “uniform, quantitative reporting” from such a large and diversified organization, and the proposal wound up receiving 25.9% shareholder support overall, but 45.7% support from independent shareholders.
That said, the company’s stance has obviously changed since then.
Here are select statistics from Berkshire Hathaway’s 2021 EEO-1 report.
- Collectively, the conglomerate has more than 288,000 employees across its businesses, a figure that places it among America’s top 20 largest employers.
- In total, Berkshire Hathaway companies have slightly more than 2,800 executives, nearly 80 percent of which are men. From a race and ethnicity standpoint, 4.6 percent of these executives identify as Hispanic, 3.6 identify as Asian, and 2.7 percent identify as Black or African American.
- Nearly two-thirds of the managers at Berkshire Hathaway companies are men. From a race and ethnicity standpoint, 8.5 percent of the conglomerate’s managers identify as Hispanic, seven percent as Black or African American, and 2.9 percent as Asian.
- The company also breaks down the gender and ethnicity of its entire workforce by business segments. In its non-insurance operations, 27 percent of workers are female, while 34 percent identify as racially diverse. In its insurance operations, which includes GEICO, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, and General RE, 58 percent of its workers are women, while 41 percent identify as racially diverse.