Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook has emphasized the need for workplace diversity on several occasions last year. Cook said that diversity is vital to innovation and important for Apple’s future. According to Cook, the company must meet underlying challenges, present new opportunities and establish a future generation of personnel as diverse as the existing world.

Fighting words, but hiring workers in direct proportion to the diversity of the human race on Earth is next to impossible. Statistics reveal slow progress, unsurprisingly. As per Apple’s last annual report, there was a small increase in the percentage of Apple’s US employees who are Hispanic, black and Asian. The number of black employees rose from 8% in 2014 to 8.7% last year. The number of Hispanic employees increased from 11.5% in 2014 to 11.8% in 2015. Asian employees increased from 16.3% in 2014 to 17.4% last year.

The number of women in Apple’s workforce rose to 30% last year from 27.7% in 2014. The share of women among Apple’s senior employees of about 7,356 managers as well as senior executives dropped to 27.1% from 27.7%.

Apple remains predominantly white and male. Executive managers as well as senior figures are likewise mostly white and male at 83% for both.

Large tech companies such as Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) have similar numbers. On average, tech companies are dominated by men, with women making up 15% of the tech force.

Apple’s vice president of worldwide human resources, Denise Young Smith, opined that improving diversity will take a while. She said that the diversity challenge didn’t occur overnight, and it will not change overnight.

Apple claims that Federal authorities are not up to date with changes in the US workforce industry. And perhaps, at the end of the day, Apple should simply concentrate on hiring the best and most reliable workers, regardless of race, skin color, gender or anything else.