For Intel, 27% of women in the labor market mean it has reached "full representation"

Getty Images

In 2015, Intel had announced that it would spend $ 300 million promoting diversity, not only in its ranks, but also in the information technology sector.

At the time, chip makers had 4% black employees, 8% Hispanics and 24% women.

A few years later, and Intel

INTC, -0.63%

claims to have achieved its goal of "full representation" well ahead of schedule.

Do not be too excited. It sounds a lot better than that.

In this case, here's what "full representation" – a single Intel goal – means: nearly 5% black, 9.2% Hispanic and about 27% female.

An improvement, certainly, but not quite representative of the American population.

According to Intel, these figures only reflect the pool of talent available and are a first step towards greater diversity. The company bases the words "full representation" on market availability, a metric derived from data extracted from several sources, including the National Center for Education Statistics, the US Census Bureau, and internal company data.

Joelle Emerson, founder and CEO of the Diversity and Integration Strategy Corporation, Paradigm, told The Wall Street Journal that the goal was "not particularly ambitious" and that it "means that we are as representative as other organizations in our sector. "

Barbara Whye, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Leader at Intel, explained that the goal is "like a thumb on a 12-inch ruler" and that the next likely goal of the company is to better reflect the entire population.