Diversity advocates called for greater government intervention in the tech industry Wednesday in an effort to close a looming worker gap and address the lack of women and non-Asian minorities.

Federal regulators picked apart diversity data and questioned representatives from tech companies in a bicoastal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hearing Wednesday. It was, commissioners said, a first step.

What the next step might be, however, remained unclear.

Several panelists at the commission meeting, which was held in Washington and joined on videoconference by the agency’s San Francisco office, suggested that the commission create mandates for tech companies’ employment practices and alter the way it tracks diversity to include characteristics beyond race and gender that are underrepresented in tech fields — like age and disability status.

Kapor Capital partner Ben Jealous, a civil rights activist and former leader of the NAACP, implored the government to “create a national mandate” that would require companies to interview a more diverse array of American workers for open positions.

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The need for government action, Jealous said, is urgent.

He pointed to studies that have shown the economy will face a worker shortfall of millions by 2020 in sectors that require highly skilled workers. The tech industry, the commission said, can probably expect a gap of 1.4 million.

“Here we have an industry that is vital to our national competitiveness, that is vital to our economy,” Jealous said. “We need to pop a moonshot in the area of inclusion to really push the nation to fill as many of those positions as possible in a short amount of time. … I encourage you to take this issue and this threat to our national competitiveness seriously, and use your voting pulpit to champion inclusion in hiring in tech.”

Laurie McCann, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation, suggested that the federal agency begin asking companies for age data in their annual reports and take action against firms that explicitly list ages, graduation years or “maximum years of experience” in job listings, which McCann said is discriminatory.

“Unlike age disparities, at least these companies aren’t boasting about their gender or racial disparities as a reason you would want to come work for them,” McCann said. “Companies post for new or recent graduates, some even specify which graduating class. … Some (job listings) require applicants to be digital natives. … This is purely age-based.” (Digital natives are generally understood to be those born after 1980 who grew up amid the widespread embrace of the Internet.)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which scrutinizes employment practices in an effort to root out discrimination, said that addressing tech’s diversity and inclusion problem is among its top priorities.

But federal regulators gave no indication what steps they would take.

“All tech firms benefit from ensuring that they are not a barrier to opportunity. That way they can harness the best ideas and talent,” commission Chairwoman Jenny Yang said. “Expanding diversity and inclusion is critical to unlocking the full potential for tomorrow’s economy.”

The hearing, which lasted three hours, covered a broad range of factors that experts believe contribute to the disparate treatment of women, people of color and older tech workers. Jealous spoke about the trickle-down impact of venture capital firms that are even less diverse than the startups in which they invest.

It was not a new conversation.

Tech companies have, for years, been under fire for their lack of diversity and the recruiting practices that many believe contribute to the makeup of tech offices. In response, many began publicly releasing employee diversity data and implementing programs designed to limit biased recruiting.

Erin Connell, a partner at San Francisco law office Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe who represents several big tech firms, and Camilla Velasquez, head of product and marketing at human resources software startup JustWorks, said tech companies have made a concentrated effort in recent years to address its diversity problem.

“The tech companies I work with are very serious about not discriminating, and they take those obligations seriously,” Connell said.

“Most startups are concerned with hiring for culture fit,” Velasquez added. “We’re trying to help them understand what culture fit means in light of diversity initiatives.”

The hearing was coupled with the release of a commission study on the demographics of the tech sector that was generated using the agency’s own data, which companies of 100 or more employees are required to report.

The report, “Diversity in High Tech,” focuses on gender, race, ethnicity and national origin — the categories the agency requires employers to track — but did not include data on age or disability status.

The tech industry is more white, Asian American and male than the private sector as a whole. About 80 percent of tech executives are male — compared with 71 percent in the private sector overall.

In Silicon Valley, the report said, women and men in non-technology firms were about equal with the population — 49 percent female and 51 percent male. At tech companies, though, those numbers change: Among 75 leading Silicon Valley tech firms, the commission reported, 30 percent of the workers are female.

“We do hope this is the first step in a broader effort,” Yang said. In Silicon Valley, he said, “There is energy around the belief that anything is possible. ... The ability to solve some of our hardest problems now is something we really hope to harness in addressing these important issue.”

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae