Here's the memo Apple just sent to employees about its new diversity report

Apple - like most large tech companies in Silicon Valley - has a diversity problem.

It's largely comprised of white men, but the company promises that it's making a great effort to bring people of all backgrounds, genders, and ethnicities into the company.

Right now, the workforce at Apple is 69% male and 31% female, according to new diversity statistics that were released on Thursday.

That's a bit different than the 70% male to 30% female ratio it reported last year, but just barely. The company says it's hired more than 11,000 women globally, is up by 65% from the previous year. In the United States, Apple has hired 2,200 black employees, which is a 55% increase from the year prior.

Here's a snapshot of what diversity at Apple looks like:

And here's what it looked like in 2014:

In a public message on Apple's diversity page, CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that the company still has a long way to go.

We are proud of the progress we've made, and our commitment to diversity is unwavering. But we know there is a lot more work to be done. Some people will read this page and see our progress. Others will recognize how much farther we have to go. We see both.

9to5Mac claims to have obtained a memo that Apple's Denise Young Smith, the company's vice president of worldwide human resources, sent out to employees that reiterated this idea.

Team,

For the past year, we've deepened our companywide conversation about inclusion and diversity at Apple. And as you all have seen, we just released demographic data about our employees showing that we're making some progress in this area. I encourage you to visit our new Inclusion and Diversity page to read Tim's message, view our workforce demographics update, and learn more about how we're making impact with some of our biggest initiatives and partners.

In addition, many of you have talked to me personally about diversity, and hundreds of you contributed ideas and asked questions through In Your Voice, our employee feedback program. Today, I want to share some of the compelling stories we received, address your most common questions, and provide an update on highlights of the work we've been doing internally and externally to promote inclusion and diversity.

I want to encourage all of you to consider the ways you can make differences matter in your work day to day. And I want to invite you to keep the conversation going, both in personal discussions and through In Your Voice. If you have a concern to raise, an idea to contribute, or a story to tell, please let us know.

Thank you for your time, your thoughtfulness, and your commitment to making Apple better.

Denise

Last year, Yahoo, Google, and LinkedIn among others all reported similar results. Some companies are making really ambitious moves to change this - Intel recently announced that it had doubled the number of women and minorities it hired in the US over the past six months.

We've reached out to Apple to confirm whether or not the memo is legitimate, and will update this post when we hear back.