An informal employee survey shows a 6% wage gap between men and women at Apple

Apple Park photo of the side of the main building Source: Apple

What you need to know

Apple employees recently put together their own survey about pay equity.
2000 Apple employees filled out the survey.
It revealed a 6% pay gap between men and women for those who took the survey.

An informal employee survey is bringing up the discussion of pay inequity at Apple.

As reported by The Verge, a group of Apple employees put together an informal survey to gather data around pay equity. After comparing the data provided by about 2,000 employees, the survey found a 6% wage gap between men and women in the company.

Cher Scarlett, a software engineer at the company who worked on the survey, says that employees are feeling the need to revisit the issue. While Apple said it had addressed pay gaps in the past, their own data is saying otherwise.

"We know pay equity was a problem in the past and Apple did something to fix it, but we're having this conversation again because we're seeing gaps in certain areas of the company and we want to know what Apple will do to prevent it from happening year-over-year," Scarlett says.

More than anything, employees would like the company to be more transparent with pay.

Scarlett knows the survey isn't conclusive. "We're not trying to draw definitive conclusions, we're trying to get some insight because we've had none," she explains. "What we actually want is for Apple to do a third-party investigation into salary data, or an audit that we have insight into."

When reached for comment, Apple spokesperson Rachel Tulley provided the standard response about pay equity at the company.

"Apple has a firm and long‑standing commitment to pay equity. Globally, employees of all genders earn the same when engaging in similar work with comparable experience and performance. In the United States, the same is true for employees of all races and ethnicities. We don't ask for salary history during the recruiting process. Our recruiters base offers on Apple employees in similar roles. And every year, we examine the compensation employees receive and ensure that we maintain pay equity."

Earlier this month, Apple had shut down an internal survey about pay that was created by the same group, saying that the survey contained personally identifiable information and that they could not use the internal Box account of the company.