SAN JOSE, Calif. — Google has had more trouble diversifying its workforce than its computer scientists have had writing programs that respond to search requests in the blink of an eye or designing cars that can navigate traffic without a human behind the wheel.

That seemed to be the conclusion when the Silicon Valley giant this week issued a gender and ethnic breakdown of its workforce that showed that of its 26,600 U.S. employees, 61 percent are white, 30 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic and 2 percent black. Thirty percent of its employees are women.

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Google’s employee breakdown is 61 percent white and 30 percent Asian. Hispanics and blacks comprise 5 percent with women at 30 percent. The Associated Press

Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Advanced Micro Devices have published similar breakdowns.

“Google is miles from where we want to be,” said Laszlo Bock, head of personnel at Google.

Why is one of the most innovative, dynamic sectors of the U.S. economy looking like the corporate world of the past, at least when it comes to blacks, Hispanics and women?

The biggest factor is a shortage of such students majoring in computer science or other technical fields in college, according to Bock.

“There is an absolute pipeline problem,” he said in an interview Wednesday with “PBS Newshour.”

One year, Google says, there were just two black people in the U.S. with newly minted doctorates in computer science on the job market. The company hired one of them, and Microsoft hired the other, according to Bock.

Now Google is trying to do more recruiting at colleges with large minority enrollments.

During the past year, Google has dispatched a specialist to work with historically black Howard University to draw up a curriculum that will give its graduates a better chance of competing for technology jobs against the likes of MIT.

Google is just one of many high-tech companies that are pledging to diversify their workforces this spring under pressure from the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Google’s efforts come amid a renewed bout of advocacy from Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which have been leading delegations to shareholder meetings this spring at such companies as Google, Facebook, eBay and Hewlett-Packard, decrying “old patterns that exclude people of color and women from opportunity and advancement.”

Jackson said that he hopes others will follow Google’s lead, and that this time he is redoubling his efforts here.

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