The balance of this report describes and interprets statistical data on the representation, hiring, promotion and termination of designated group employees in workplaces covered by the Employment Equity Act.

Private sector employers have now been filing annual employment equity reports with Human Resources Development Canada for 13 years. In 2000, some 331 employers in banking, communications, transportation and the "other" sector filed data on their combined workforces of about 586,000 employees for the year ending December 31, 1999. The "other" sector includes a variety of employers such as grain companies, uranium mines, nuclear power operations, credit corporations and museums.

In addition, the Treasury Board reported on employment equity in 65 federal departments and agencies with a combined workforce of about 141,000 employees as of March 31, 2000. The representation data do not include Revenue Canada, which became the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency on November 1, 1999, and which has a workforce of about 43,000. This new agency is now one of 15 separate federal agencies which have a combined workforce of about 60,000 as of March 31, 2000. Since they are not part of the federal public service discussed in the Treasury Board's Annual Report to Parliament, they are not included in the discussion which follows.

The size of the private sector workforce remained relatively stable compared to the previous year. The workforce in the "other" sector decreased by almost 18 per cent, but this was compensated by modest growth in the communications and transportation sectors. Although the number of hires was somewhat lower than in 1998, ample opportunities remained to hire members of the four designated groups, since over 75,000 positions were filled. Although not all employers took advantage of these opportunities, progress did occur. However, outcomes varied considerably by industrial sector and designated group.

The data published by the Treasury Board indicate that there were also many opportunities to hire designated group members in the federal public service, with close to 14,000 job openings, including 2,600 permanent positions, filled. These data, however, must be interpreted with some caution since they include staffing actions at Revenue Canada until November 1999; the Board has not provided data which make it possible to assess staffing actions in the current federal public service, excluding Revenue Canada. The data that have been provided suggest that although women and Aboriginal people benefited from these hiring opportunities, once again persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities were hired at rates substantially lower than their availability in the Canadian workforce. As discussed below, the experience of the designated groups varied substantially from one department or agency to another.

In evaluating the latest data, the following points should be kept in mind.

• The sections below compare workforce data in the private and public sectors with the 1996 Census data on women, visible minorities and Aboriginal peoples.
• The availability estimates for persons with disabilities are from the 1991 Health and Activity Limitation Survey (HALS), since a new HALS was not conducted in conjunction with the 1996 Census.
• Since a new system of grouping occupations in the private sector was adopted in 1996, it is not always possible to make comparisons at the occupational level with data prior to that time.
• The availability estimates utilized by the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) for visible minorities include only Canadian citizens. In previous estimates based on 1991 Census data, the TBS estimate of 9.0 per cent availability for the public sector was similar to the 9.1 per cent availability estimate for the private sector, and both included non-citizens as well as Canadian citizens. Although the 1996 Census indicates that the overall availability of visible minorities is now 10.3 per cent, the TBS estimate has decreased to 8.7 per cent due to the exclusion of non-citizens. The TBS rationale for excluding non-citizens is that the Public Service Employment Act gives an absolute preference to Canadian citizens in hirings into the public service. This preference is currently the subject of a court challenge. Until the issue is resolved by the courts, the Commission will assess public service hiring goals against the 10.3 per cent benchmark for visible minorities, because the majority of federal public service positions are open to citizens and non-citizens.
• The phrase "shares of hirings/terminations" is used to refer to the percentage of people hired or terminated who were members of a designated group. Normally, if there were no employment barriers, a designated group could be expected to receive approximately the same share of hirings as its availability in the Canadian workforce. For terminations, however, the group's share should correspond to its existing representation within the organization.

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