What are Labor Force Goals and Hiring Objectives?
Labor force goals are based upon an approximation of who is available for particular types of jobs by race and gender.
Census, education and employment data are analyzed to determine the availability of persons of color and women who have the necessary skills, knowledge and education to perform particular jobs. (Adequate labor force data are not available for persons with disabilities, Vietnam era veterans and special disabled veterans).
How Are Labor Force Availabilities and Goals Used?
Labor force availability and goals are used as a measure of how well UW-Extension's hiring and retention practices reflect equal employment opportunity.
Availability and goals are established by job groups -- clusters of jobs that require similar skills, knowledge, abilities, job content and opportunity. If our actual labor force representation of persons of color and women is less than these job group availability goals, it is an indication that there may be problems in how we recruit, hire and retain our workforce -- we may be discriminating against persons based on their race and or gender.
In job groups where one or more protected groups are underrepresented, UW-Extension must act affirmatively to correct the "disparity." This involves making extra efforts to recruit, hire and retain members of underrepresented groups.
How does UW-Extension evaluate compliance with equal employment opportunity and affirmative action laws and regulations?
Clearly, progress toward achieving labor force availability is one measure of compliance, but it is not the only one. Organizations are evaluated based on three criteria:
- The contents of the affirmative action program (what do we plan to do to meet our goals?)
- The extent to which we adhere to our goals (what do we actually do to achieve our goals?)
- Our good faith efforts to make our programs work (evidence that we do more than go through the motions.)
