Google agrees to pay over $2.5M for job discrimination

American tech firm Google has agreed to pay over $2.5 million in total in a job discrimination case to more than 5,500 female employees and overlooked Asian applicants.

In a case against the US Department of Labor, the California-based firm will pay a total settlement amount of $2.58 million, according to the document released by the department on Monday.

The settlement includes payments of over $1.3 million to 2,565 female engineers, and more than $1.2 million to 1,757 female engineering applicants along with 1,219 Asian engineering applicants for "engineering positions not hired."

The company will also set more than $1.2 million for any potential pay-equity adjustments by reserving $250,000 a year for the next five years.

Google's parent company Alphabet has experienced conflicts with its employees in recent years.

Thousands of Google employees around the world organized a mass walkout in November 2018 to protest the firm's behavior in handling of sexual assault cases amid one executive receiving a golden parachute benefits as he was quitting the firm with alleged sexual harassment.

In July 2018, it was reported that around half of Google workers were employed as contractors without receiving same benefits as direct employees.

Employees formed the Alphabet Workers Union last month to include all company workers, from full-time and temporary employees to vendors and contractors, in order to form "solidarity with one another."