Google to pay $118M to settle lawsuit alleging it underpaid women

The class-action lawsuit included 15,500 women and alleged Google paid its women workers in California less than male employees for similar work.

Google has agreed to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit that alleges the multinational tech giant systemically underpaid women in California.

As part of the settlement, Google is set to pay US$118 million to approximately 15,500 workers who say they were paid less than their male counterparts for similar work.

Google has also agreed to bring on an independent third party to oversee its hiring practices and a labour economist to review its annual pay equity studies. The press release announcing the settlement said the plaintiffs believe these measures will help address pay inequity in the company, and also combat unfair “leveling practices.”

When Ellis v. Google LLC was first filed in 2017, it represented only three women — and it alleged discrimination not just on the basis of pay but also “levelling, job channelling and promotions.”

Google has a tiered pay system where employees at higher levels receive higher salaries and bonuses.

Before it was amended, the lawsuit additionally claimed that new women hires were being funnelled into lower levels than men who had the same work experiences, leading to lower wages overall. It was narrowed to pay discrimination only.

The plaintiffs won class-action status in 2021. The case now represents women in 236 job titles who say they were underpaid in the four years leading up to the 2017 complaint being filed.

That was the same year that Google was also sued by the U.S. Department of Labor over “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce,” according to the Financial Times. The lawsuit also claimed that Google discriminated against Asian job applicants.