The CIA intends to reduce over the next two years the time for checking candidates for work in its ranks to no more than 180 days.
The proportion of women in the ranks of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reached 45% to date. Such data was given on Wednesday at a hearing in the permanent special committee on intelligence of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress by CIA Director William Burns.
“Today, 45% of the CIA personnel are women, 26% are minorities,” said the head of a key American intelligence agency. He assured that he is making active efforts to combat discrimination on racial, sexual and other grounds when hiring at the CIA. “We have made progress: this spring, among those promoted from among senior intelligence officials, 43% were women and 25% were representatives of minorities. Most of the appointments I made during my seven months as director in the leadership [of the CIA] were made by women and almost a third were representatives of minorities,” Burns said.
In addition, he noted that the department in Langley is stepping up efforts to recruit young people, contacts of this kind with 130 higher education institutions in all 50 American states.
Finally, Burns added that the CIA intends to reduce the time for checking candidates for work in its ranks to no more than 180 days over the next two years. Currently, this period exceeds 600 days, Burns said.
