Detailed reports
Section 5 – Equal Employment Opportunity
The PS Act and the Commissioner’s Directions require agencies to put in place Workplace Diversity Programs that promote diversity and help prevent discrimination. The APS Value on equity in employment requires, in particular, measures aimed at eliminating any employment-related disadvantage on the basis of:
- being an Indigenous Australian
- sex
- race or ethnicity
- physical or mental disability.
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) data is supplied to agencies by individuals on a voluntary basis, and forwarded by agencies to be entered onto APSED. Overall, non-response varies widely between agencies.
Because no new measurement regime has yet been agreed for ‘race or ethnicity’, for the purpose of this publication NESB 1 and 2 are used for reporting purposes. NESB 1 refers to people born overseas who arrived in Australia after the age of fi ve and whose first language was not English. NESB 2 refers to children of migrants, including: those who were born overseas and arrived in Australia before the age of five but did not speak English as a first language; those who were Australian born but did not speak English as a first language and had at least one NESB parent; and those people who were Australian born and had neither parent speaking English as a first language.
The current focus on employees with a disability and on Indigenous employment in the APS provides an even greater emphasis for ensuring that the quality of data is robust. The Commission continues to work with agencies to encourage employees to provide this data to their agency’s HR system.
Figure 12 shows the change in the representation of the four EEO groups from their proportion at June 1991. Each of these proportions is weighted by the ratio of the June 1991 total ongoing APS number to the number of employees in the respective EEO group at June 1991. Weighting eliminates the effects that the changes in the overall size of the APS have on representation. The index is given a value of 100 at June 1991, and rises and falls proportionally with the particular group’s change in the weighted number over time. For example, at June 1991 the number of Indigenous Australians was 2442 out of an ongoing APS population of 139,893. By 1998 the number of Indigenous Australians had risen to 2595 but the ongoing APS number had dropped to 108,549. Therefore the weighted IA number for 1998 is 3813.4, which is 156.2% of the original index.
Figure 12: Change in population, weighted and indexed, for EEO groups, 30 June 1996 to 30 June 2005
Source: APSED
Tables available in Section 5
- Agency by EEO group
- Classification by EEO group and sex
- Highest educational qualification by EEO group and sex
