Diversity Reports

Diversity is a foundational value of the Intelligence Community and with it, inclusion, since individuals must feel fully included in order to thrive. For the IC, diversity isn’t just about hitting arbitrary targets for hiring and retention, it’s a mission-critical imperative. A diverse workforce allows the IC to be more effective at protecting this country. The IC workforce must reflect diversity in its broadest context: cultural backgrounds, ethnicity, race, gender, age, disability, gender identification, heritage, language proficiency, and perspectives. 

In June 2016, the IC released its first public report on IC diversity. The report examines the hiring and retention of minorities, women, and persons with disabilities for Fiscal Year 2015 (ending September 30, 2015). The diversity report is required by Congress and has been provided to oversight bodies annually since 2005, but never publicly released until 2016.

The report found that the IC had made gains in working towards a more diverse workforce, it still lagged behind the rest of the federal workforce and the civilian labor force. The report for Fiscal Year 2016 (released in August 2017) had similar findings, with only incremental increases over the previous year.

In light of these findings as well as longer-term trends, the IC Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Office conducted a study examining workforce concerns and barriers to inclusion within the IC. The resulting report, released in January 2017, highlighted “six major areas where the IC can take an integrated approach to reduce or eliminate workplace challenges to hiring and retaining a more diverse workforce.”

The IC is committed to strengthening the talent and diversity of the workforce through innovative and broad-based inclusion initiatives. Learn more about these efforts on the IC Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity’s webpage.