US government's Department of Labour accuses Google of gender pay gap

The US government's Department of Labour (DoL) has accused Google of gender-based discriminatory pay practices.

"We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," Janette Wipper, DoL regional director, testified in a San Francisco court.

Google, however, denied the allegations saying it had never heard of such a practice until it was mentioned in court. The Alphabet owned tech giant said it conducts a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders every year and has found no pay gap so far.

The government's analysis – as part of an ongoing investigation – suggests that discrimination against women at Google is fairly high. According to Janet Herold, regional solicitor for the DoL, the accusations come after the government asked federal contractor Google to hand over salary documents of employees to check the company's compliance with equal opportunity laws.

Google's refusal to hand over these documents led to a DoL investigation. The probe reportedly revealed that women at the company, who were doing the same work as men, were being underpaid.

Tech companies in the US have regularly been accused of gender discrimination. Uber was recently embroiled in a major sexism controversy. The DoL has also come down heavily on many tech companies like Palantir that allegedly discriminates against Asians, and Oracle that is accused of favouring white males.

The DoL has requested the court to cancel all of Google's federal contracts and block any future business with the government if it continues to refuse to comply with the rules.