The Equal Opportunity in Public Employment Act 1992 defines the following people as members of a target groups:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• people who have migrated to Australia and whose first language is a language other than English, and the children of those people
• people with a disability, and
• women.

The following definitions of target groups are used for employment targets and reporting arrangements:

• Aboriginal people
  
  People of the Aboriginal race of Australia
  
  
• Torres Strait Islanders
  
  People who are descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands
  
  
• Non English Speaking Backgrounds (NESB)
  
  People who have migrated to Australia and whose first language is a language other than English, and the children of those people.
  
  For the purposes of reporting this target group is divided into the following two categories:
  • NESB 1 - people who have migrated to Australia and whose first language is a language other than English
  • NESB 2 - the children of people who have migrated to Australia and the first language of at least one of their parents is a language other than English.
  
  
• People with a disability (PwD)
  
  People with a physical, sensory, intellectual or psychiatric disability (whether the disability presently exists or previously existed but no longer exists).
  
  
• Women in management
  
  
  • Upper management - Senior Executive Service (SES) positions and Senior Officer (SO) positions and their salary equivalents.
  • Middle management - Positions paid at the Administrative Officer levels AO6-AO8 and their salary equivalents, which have prescribed management responsibility

Queensland Public Sector targets have been established for People from non-English speaking backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.

Targets established for women in management expired in 2005. The sector achieved all targets including representation of at least 25% in Senior Executive Service and Senior Officer; and 35% in middle and upper management positions.

No targets have been established for people with a disability as the complexity of identifying the number of people with a disability who are able to work, coupled with the range of disability types and the variability in the extent of disability, make it difficult to set one target based on representation in the community. However, there is an expectation that employment figures for this target group should continue to improve.

OPSC monitors the performance of Queensland public sector agencies in achieving targets.

• People from non-English speaking backgrounds
  
  • Migrants whose first language is a language other than English (NESB 1) and the children of migrants (NESB 2) represent 13.5% of employees at each salary level by the end of the year 2010.
  
  
• Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees represent 2.4% of all employees at all salary levels in the sector by the end of the year 2010.