Section 5 –Equal Employment Opportunity

The Commissioner’s Directions specify that the APS Value on equity in employment requires, in particular, measures aimed at eliminating any employment-related disadvantage on the basis of:

• being an Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander
• sex
• race or ethnicity
• physical or mental disability.

With the exception of sex, 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.

The current focus on improving employment outcomes for people with disability and for Indigenous Australians 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. There has been some improvement in the quality of data provided by agencies this year, however the overall quality continues to be poor and there are a number of agencies still providing little or no data on the diversity status of their employees.

For the purpose of this publication, NESB 1 and NESB 2 are used for reporting on ‘race or ethnicity’. NESB 1 refers to people born overseas who arrived in Australia after the age of five and whose first language was not English. NESB 2 refers to children of migrants, including: those who were born overseas and arrived in Australia when they were aged five or younger and did not speak English as a first language; those who were Australian born and did not speak English as a first language and had at least one NESB 1 parent; and those people who were Australian born and had neither parent speaking English as a first language.

Figure 12 shows the change in the representation of the four EEO groups from their proportion at June 1995. Each of these proportions is weighted by the ratio of the June 1995 total ongoing APS number to the number of employees in the respective EEO group at June 1995. 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 1995, and rises and falls proportionally with the particular group’s change in the weighted number over time. For example, at June 1995 the number of Indigenous Australians was 3,357 out of an ongoing APS population of 129,889. By 2009 the number of Indigenous Australians had fallen to 3,176 and the ongoing APS number had risen to 150,155. Therefore the weighted Indigenous number for 2009 is 2,747, which is 81.8% of the original index.

NEXT » Table 47: Ongoing staff: EEO status, 30 June 1995 to 30 June 2009