WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Minorities, women and disabled persons are still underrepresented in U.S. spy agencies compared with the U.S. civilian workforce, said a report released on Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The findings come as U.S. conservatives attack public and private initiatives aimed at closing gaps in employment and promotions and amid vows by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs "across the entire federal government."

The annual congressionally mandated report on the demographics of the 18 U.S. spy agencies showed the proportion of minority employees slipping from 27% in 2020 to 26.7% for fiscal year 2023, versus 39.8% for the country's civilian labor force of 167 million people during the latter period. 

Diversifying the intelligence community - long seen as a field dominated by white men from elite universities - has been a priority since the Republican administration of President George W. Bush began rebuilding the spy agencies following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Ending DEI programs in the U.S. intelligence community could harm national security by slowing the recruitment and promotion of people with the backgrounds needed for spying and analyzing intelligence on foreign threats, said Mark Warner, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"The argument for diversity is probably stronger for the IC (intelligence community) than many other federal agencies because the nature of spying is you are spying on other countries," he said.

A U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity to discuss the issue, stressed that qualifications and experience are given as much consideration in recruitment and promotions as candidates' ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

"If you were to run the data on the qualifications of any minority group in the United States intelligence community and compare them to their majority counterparts, you will find that they are on a par, and in some instances, exceeding the experience and education levels of some of their counterparts," the official said.

The new report showed that gaps persist.

Women remained under-represented in the intelligence community workforce at 41.6%, compared with 53.3% of the U.S. civilian workforce, it said, with only 34.3% employed at senior levels. Minority women accounted for "the vast majority of this disparity," the report said.

Barriers for women "start very early. They're entering at lower grades and so it is taking them longer to get to those more senior positions," said the intelligence official.

Minority intelligence officers also faced barriers to promotion and "remain particularly underrepresented" at senior levels, possibly helping to account for a higher attrition rate for minorities than for non-minority employees, the report said.

In other findings, the report said the share of the intelligence community workforce identifying as persons with disabilities dropped to 9.8% in fiscal 2023 - compared with  22.5% in the civilian workforce - from 11.9% in 2020.  

The size of the spy agencies' workforce is classified.