Mountain View, California - Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class action gender discrimination lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by former female employees for allegedly placing them in lower-job levels than equally qualified males, resulting in lower pay.

They also accused the company of denying promotions or transitions to other teams for better career advancement.

In a statement, the law firms that represented plaintiffs Kelly Ellis, Holly Pease, Kelli Wisuri, and Heidi Lamar said that the settlement covers around 15,500 female employees in 236 job titles who worked at Google in California since September 14, 2013.

As part of the settlement, an independent third party expert will analyze Google's leveling-at-hire practices, and an independent labor economist will review the company's pay equity studies.

The post-settlement work will be supervised by an external monitor over the next three years.

It's not the first time the tech giant's attitude towards women and minorities has cost it. In February 2021, it agreed to fork out $1.4 million in back pay and interest to 2,565 female engineering employees over pay discrimination, and $1.2 million to 1,757 female and 1,219 Asian applicants who were not hired for engineering positions.

The pay gaps were discovered during a routine evaluation by the US Labor Department.