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Goldman Says It Aims to Eventually Have a 50% Female Workforce

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it aims to have women make up half its workforce in the future.

Goldman Says It Aims to Eventually Have a 50% Female Workforce
A female works inside a startup office in U.S. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it aims to have women make up half its workforce in the future, starting with an even split in its class of college graduates by 2021.

The bank said it already pays women and men equally when they’re in comparable roles with similar performance, according to a memo sent by Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and President David Solomon. The firm didn’t set a timeline for gender parity in its global workforce.

The lack of gender diversity at the highest levels of Wall Street has become a hot-button issue as many firms lay out succession plans and banks are being pushed by politicians and shareholders to detail pay gaps. No female executive has ever run a major Wall Street bank, and treatment of women across all industries has been scrutinized as part of the #MeToo movement.

“The real issue for our firm and many corporations is the under-representation of women and diverse professionals both in magnitude and levels of seniority,” Blankfein and Solomon wrote in the memo. “We also need to hold ourselves accountable to providing more opportunities for women and diverse professionals to rise to the highest levels of our firm.”

Women made up 38 percent of the bank’s U.S. employees in 2016, according to data from the company. Solomon became the frontrunner to succeed Blankfein this week, rising atop a small and all-male group. The 56-year-old executive presented ideas on diversity to the board in June.

--With assistance from Max Abelson

To contact the reporters on this story: Jordyn Holman in New York at jholman19@bloomberg.net, Dakin Campbell in New York at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl

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