Apple and Google are among a handful of tech companies who fought to hide the race and gender of their workforce from newspaper reporters. And no wonder: Their diversity probably went from bad to worse.

The largest Silicon Valley companies lost more than one in ten black and Hispanic employees from 2000 to 2005, leaving their workforces just 7 percent black and Hispanic, even as their overall employment grew 16 percent, accoring to federal employment data obtained by the San Jose Mercury News. And that's among the 10 companies who allowed the newspaper's Freedom of Information Act Request to clear the Labor Department. One would presume the situation is even worse at stonewalling Apple, Google, Oracle, Yahoo and Applied Materials, though the firms insist they are merely protecting trade secrets. It's entirely possible that Apple CEO Steve Jobs, for example, is hiding a very diverse workforce behind this management team:

(Top pic: DaveMN on Flickr)