The state recently released its FY24 Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Report and FY25 Action Plan, and it shows progress and ongoing focus on workforce diversity and accountability.
The report from the Delaware Dept. of Human Resources’ Division of Diversity Equity, and Inclusion highlights measurable progress in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion across the Executive Branch.
In FY24 there were 12,808 employees across all agencies up almost 250 from the previous year, and roughly 40% of that workforce were minorities.
Women saw a 0.9% increase of the state’s workforce while men saw the same decrease in FY24 from FY23.
"As we've seen this past year, we continue to diversify our state workforce. Some of those increases are by half a percentage point by just over a percentage point. The point is we continue the progress towards diversifying our state workforce," said Department of Human Resources Secretary Claire DeMatteis.
The report also shows there are a total of 444 employees voluntarily self-identifying as having a disability.
It also shows a significant increase in applications for state jobs- a 14.2% increase over FY23 with 49,500 people applying for Executive Branch agency jobs.
The goal of this report when it first started was to make sure the state workforce represented the gender and racial diversity of the state.
DeMatteis says that’s the case.
"And 38% of our state are minorities, 38% of state government employees are minorities. About 52% of all Delawareans are women and 52% of our state workforce are women, and that is a concerted effort agency by agency to make sure we're focusing on this and that we keep it a priority," said DeMatteis.
DeMatteis notes moving forward it will be important to stay focused on creative opportunities to hire a diverse workforce.
