AbbVie's workforce is 53% women & one-third employees of color

Photo | Grant Welker AbbVie's Worcester facility

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By Grant Welker

AbbVie, a pharmaceutical giant with a major presence in Worcester, is one of 34 big corporations to have pledged to publicly disclose their workforce demographics.

The results? AbbVie has a strong record of having women and minorities in leadership positions and other places throughout the company.

Women make up 51% of AbbVie's executive, senior and mid-level management ranks, according to AbbVie's report, one of 34 S&P 500 companies disclosing such data in an initiative with the New York City Comptroller's Office announced late September.

AbbVie, which is based in the Chicago area and has more than 1,300 workers in Worcester, has women in 53% of its American workforce. Non-white workers make up one-third of its workforce of more than 14,000 people. Of those, the largest segment is Asian workers, who make up 18% of AbbVie's employees.

Among Massachusetts-based companies, only Boston's American Tower Corp., a real estate investment trust, and Cambridge's Biogen, a biotechnology firm, were included in the New York Comptroller's diversity disclosure program. Disclosing such EEO-1 reports, the program said, is a gold standard for diversity disclosure and enables investors to evaluate the performance of companies' ability to hire, retain, and promote employees of color and women.

AbbVie has been touted before for its inclusivity, including perfect scores in each of the past two years from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. The scores reflect companies' commitment to LGBTQ equality and inclusion.