The Office of the National Director of Intelligence’s annual demographic report for fiscal 2023 found that while the Intelligence Community has a more diverse talent pool, minority officers accounted for 32.4% of those leaving after less than a year on the job. SAUL LOEB / Getty Images
The minority talent pipeline is growing for the intelligence community, but representation is falling
The Office of the National Director of Intelligence’s annual demographic report found that while the Intelligence Community has made strong gains in minority applicants, attrition has led to workforce diversity declines over the past two years.
Efforts to bring diverse talent to the Intelligence Community have been growing, but a new report shows that attrition has cleaved into that representation.
The Office of the National Director of Intelligence’s annual demographic report for fiscal 2023, published on Aug.23, detailed that attrition for minority officers within the 18 agencies that compose the IC was proportionally in line with the overall workforce at 26.2%, but that African American officers represented half of that attrition, followed by Hispanic or Latino/a officers at 5.7% and Asian officers at 4.7%.
Much of that attrition came in the first year, with minority officers accounting for 32.4% of those leaving the IC after less than a year on the job. Of those, African American officers represented 15.4%, with Asian and Hispanic or Latino/a officers following at 7.4% and 7.1%, respectively.
Those numbers pale in comparison to the diverse talent pool that the IC has developed, with minority candidates accounting for 39.2% of all applicants, the largest portion of which was African American at 16.5% of applicants.
The ODNI report pointed to several factors that could be at play in the attrition rate, including the promotion rate for minorities.
While minority officers accounted for 34.6% of promotions to General Schedule/General Grade 10 and below, those numbers dropped to 19.7% when accounting for senior rank promotions. While African American and Asian officers both represented 7.3% of those who reached senior rank, Hispanic or Latino/a officers only accounted for 4.4%.
“A lack of representation at more senior ranks could be a driver of higher rates of attrition among minorities than non-minority counterparts. Asian, Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino/a officers were overrepresented among officers that resigned from the IC within their first year,” the report said. “Notably, all racial and ethnic minority groups had more negative responses to questions surrounding diversity and equity in the IC Employment Climate Survey’s DEIA Index.”
Women and persons with disabilities both continue to be underrepresented in the IC when compared to representation levels in the entire federal workforce. Women’s participation and attrition levels remained relatively consistent, but they remain underrepresented in senior leadership roles, accounting for 34.3% of senior leaders despite being 41.6% of the IC’s total composition.
However, women as new hires outpaced attrition levels by five points, 42.9% to 37.8%, indicating more representation in IC in the future should the trend hold.
Representations of persons with disabilities dropped two points between fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2023, landing at 9.8%, though the report noted that “About 11.1 percent of the IC workforce, however, has not disclosed disability status, which may be skewing the statistics on PWD in the IC.”
Because of that, the report calls for better data to determine the attrition rates of persons with disabilities in the IC, noting an 8.8% attrition rate in fiscal 2023, but that 23.1% of those who left that year did not disclose their disability status. Persons with disabilities accounted for 7.4% of senior leadership, but the report noted that 21% of senior leaders also did not disclose their disability status.
Finally, while the majority of respondents to the IC’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Index — a 13-question survey meant to gauge workplace perceptions — widely felt that their agency promoted diversity and fairness, there were gaps of more than 5% between minorities and non-minorities and women and men to what extent that was true.
“While the IC has continued to make strides this year in attracting and hiring talented applicants that represent our nation—we still have work to do, as you will see when you read our report,” said director of national intelligence Avril Haines, principal deputy director of national intelligence Stacey Dixon and chief of Intelligence Community diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility Stephanie La Rue in the report’s foreword.
“It is imperative that the IC continue to attract and retain talent from a wide range of backgrounds as the composition of our country becomes increasingly diverse.”