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People from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

The Queensland public sector diversity target for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds is based on the number of people who speak a language other than English at home, including those who speak a First Nations language.

MOHRI captures two pieces of information to understand performance against this measure – place of birth and language spoken at home. The sector is committed to achieving a diverse and inclusive workforce reflective of the Queensland community. The category of non-English speaking background (NESB) was replaced in the September 2021 MOHRI report with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD), aligning to national standards.

Progress towards the target

  • A target of 12% of the workforce equates to 36,964 employees disclosing that they are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
  • At March 2024, 8.24% of employees or 25,386 people disclosed that they speak a language other than English at home.

Employee experiences

Employee engagement among culturally and linguistically diverse groups improved to 67%, a one percentage point increase from 2022.

Source: Working for Queensland 2022 and 2023.

Diversity as a barrier to success

  • 69% of those who speak a language other than English at home do not believe that cultural background is a barrier to success, while 11% believe it is.
  • 73% of those who speak English at home believe that cultural background is not a barrier to success, while 5% believe it is a barrier to success.
  • 17% of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples, who also speak a language other than English at home, consider cultural background as a barrier to success.