The city of Boston has released new data on the diversity of its workforce.
The recent data dump came after a judge ordered the information be made public in response to a lawsuit brought by The Boston Globe, though the city had made much of the data available prior to that lawsuit.
(For data hounds: The city publishes a "Diversity Dashboard" that allows users to filter by city department, but which does not provide raw data. The city made raw data available to the Globe in response to a request in February, but that data did not contain individual names or individual job titles. The most recent data adds individual names, job titles and a few other fields).
A preliminary look by the WGBH News Data Desk shows a city workforce that is indeed diverse—but somewhat less diverse than the city as a whole.
Overall, the city’s workforce is 53 percent white, while Boston’s population is 46 percent white.
But those numbers change greatly by department. A preliminary review by WGBH News found that among city departments with more than 10 employees, only seven of thirty eight roughly match the city’s racial diversity.
Among the least diverse were the city's Fire Department, which is about 70 percent white, and the Police Department, which is about 66 percent white.
WGBH News did a quick breakdown of diversity in City of Boston departments, below. The category "non-white" includes employees self-identified as Asian, Hispanic, Black, Pacific Islander, and American Indian in the city's data.
Download the data yourself here.
