Community Corner
Middletown Mayor: City Reaches Milestone in Hiring Minorities
Dan Drew says in the last year Middletown has hired 40 new employees, 23 percent of which were minorities, the highest level of diversity since the city began keeping statistics.
The city has achieved the highest level of diversity on record and is now reflective of the community’s demographics for the first time since the human relations office started monitoring hiring in 1997, according to a press release issued today by Mayor Dan Drew.
For the fiscal year July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013, a total of the 40 new employees were hired — and 11, or 23 percent, of those were minority hires.
According to the Connecticut Labor Market Information, the Middlesex County population by gender and race/ethnicity, based on the 2010 Census data, minorities make up about 10.4 percent of the population. Based on this information, the city has made great strides to ensure that the makeup of its workforce is diverse and continues to be representative of city’s demographics.
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A snapshot of the makeup of the city’s personnel shows the progressive efforts made to continue to diversify the city’s workforce to be reflective of the community. Minorities (people of color) make up 13 percent of the workforce. This is the highest percentage of diversity representation in the city’s personnel since the human relations office started monitoring and reporting on these outcomes in 1997.
“Having a municipality reflective of the citizens is important,” Mayor Drew said. “I’m very proud that we have achieved this milestone.”
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“It’s taken a concerted effort to achieve these results, and we’re focused on the importance of diversifying the city’s human resources so that its makeup is reflective of its community,” said Faith Jackson, director of Human Relations.
She clarified the definition of minority as people whose race is other than Caucasian, such as "Puerto Rican, Asian, American Indian, African Americans, Pacific Islanders," Jackson said.
Other minorities, like pregnant woman, the handicapped, "and any others found to be underutilized in the workforce," are protected under the city's Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity policy.
‘This increase reflects a welcome and impressive improvement for the city," said Rosa Browne, president of the Middlesex Chapter of the NAACP.
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