​New York, Nov 18 (IANS) There has been a decline in the percentage of women working at Microsoft, said the company's diversity report, adding that the technology giant saw "modest gains" in the representation of African Americans, Black and Hispanic/Latino(a) employees.

By the end of September 2016, women made up 25.8 percent of Microsoft's global workforce which is a one percent drop from previous year's 26.8 percent, said the report release on Thursday. 

In 2014, 29 percent of Microsoft's global workforce comprised of women.

"This decline was largely due to the business decision we shared last year to restructure our phone hardware business (Nokia), which resulted in the closure of some factories outside the U.S. The workforce at these factories had a higher representation of women, so their closure impacted our total representation of women," said Gwen Houston, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Microsoft.

The diversity repport provides a glimpse of the gender and racial composition of Microsoft's employee population as of September 30, 2016.

Microsoft is creating and delivering compelling career development offerings for women and racial/ethnic minorities, Houston said.