June 10, 2008
 
A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.

1. Huge Increases in Government Hiring on the Horizon
2. GSA Reaches Telework Pact with AFGE
3. Federal Diary: A Farewell, After Nearly 40 Years of Advocacy
4. National Meeting of Park Officials Draws Fire

Huge Increases in Government Hiring on the Horizon

California Job Journal

Despite the slowing economy, federal, state and local governments have added more than 50,000 jobs so far in 2008. Federal agencies are expected to fill another 555,000 vacancies over the next few years as droves of government workers reach retirement age.

Facing potential talent shortages in several key departments, including accounting, research and information technology, the government could prove to be the most fruitful source of opportunity for the nation’s growing number of jobseekers, according to employment experts at global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

A review of several government job sites by CGCI uncovered nearly 250,000 listings. Even assuming considerable repetition across the various sites, it is likely that well over 100,000 unique job opportunities are represented, according to Challenger. The official job site of the US government alone lists nearly 102,000 positions. Jobseekers are likely to find thousands of additional openings by seeking out the employment sites for individual states, counties and local agencies.

The number of openings listed online represents only a fraction of government jobs actually available. According to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, government agencies, including local, state and federal, had 441,000 openings in March.

"For the first time since the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the public sector is significantly expanding its employment opportunities," reports John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "It could not come at a better time for jobseekers, who often overlook government agencies as a potential employer.

"Job searches are beginning to lengthen in the private sector, as business conditions weaken and employers postpone expansion plans. Those who have been frustrated with longer job searches should be casting a wider net," advises Challenger. "That means looking for positions in other cities and looking in different industries, including government.

More Than Meets the Eye

"Many jobseekers’ perceptions of government employment may be skewed by the frontline jobs they are exposed to when visiting their state DMV or the local unemployment office, for example. However, these clerk and service representative positions account for just a fraction of the opportunities. Almost any job found in the private sector can be found in the public sector, from lawyers and engineers to human resource specialists and public relations professionals."

Since the housing market collapse and economic slowdown began last August, private sector employment has seen a net loss of 79,000 jobs. In the same period, government employment grew by 215,000 jobs, according to the BLS. The majority of growth occurred at the local level, where 172,000 new jobs were created.

"Despite current economic conditions, the number of open positions in government is expected to continue growing due to retirement projections for the upcoming years," Challenger says. "Some of the biggest job growth will be in areas that could be surprising to many jobseekers."

Overall, 58 percent of supervisory and 42 percent of non-supervisory federal workers will be eligible to retire by the end of 2010, according to a report by the Partnership for Public Service, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the way government works and inspiring a new generation to serve in the public sector.

The Partnership reported that on top of potential retirements, yearly attrition patterns could account for the loss of an additional 250,000 federal employees, through resignations and reasons other than retirement. The combination of projected actual retirements and other departures will result in a loss of about 550,000 employees by 2010, one-third of the full-time federal civilian workforce.

According to the Office of Personnel Management, financial management occupations within the government are expected to see the biggest exodus of workers: 17.9 percent of the total retirees. The acquisitions branch also is expected to take a large hit, with 17.6 percent of retirees leaving soon. Projections show that information technology jobs will lose 16.9 percent of workers to retirement.

To fill all those positions, federal agencies and universities are offering incentives, including tuition discounts, to students who commit to working in the public sector. Harvard University Law School introduced a tuition-waiver program earlier this year. Students who commit to serving in the public sector for five years will receive a tuition break of more than $41,000.

In addition to tuition assistance, many government agencies offer loan repayment programs to lure recent graduates to the federal sector. Additional benefits to working in government include two weeks of vacation time, ten paid holidays and 13 days of sick leave. Life insurance and health coverage are guaranteed as well.

Cutting the Red Tape

Despite the benefits, many shy away from applying due to an often lengthy and complex hiring process that can involve extensive background checks, security clearance procedures and other forms of bureaucratic red tape. Resumes typically require different information and formatting than what’s expected by private companies (requirements can be found at USAJobs.gov).

"The federal hiring process is longer, more rigid and more complex than what job hunters are accustomed to in the private sector. This could turn out to be the biggest obstacle keeping the government from reaching its hiring goals. If the government is serious about filling these positions, it may need to completely overhaul its hiring process to streamline it and make it easier for jobseekers to navigate," said Challenger.

Steps are already being taken to accomplish this, but much more will have to be done to make the government competitive with the private sector. The federal government’s Office of Personnel Management recently announced changes to standardize the employment process. By September 2008, templates will be used for job announcements to clarify information. OPM is also launching a program to simplify the application process for senior executives.

"These simplifications may not be enough to reel in recent college graduates and current workers with less-developed skill sets," contends Challenger. "In this diminishing economy, jobseekers want to spend more time hunting for jobs and less time filling out tedious applications.

"If the government wants to start competing with private-sector employers for the best and brightest, then it will have to start recruiting like one, and that means a much shorter time from the initial contact to job offer."

 

GSA Reaches Telework Pact with AFGE

Federal Times
By Stephen Losey

Some General Services Administration employees could be able to never come to the office under a new telework policy signed today.

GSA and the American Federation of Government Employees agreed that AFGE-represented employees should be able to telework as much as possible, as long as the agency's business does not suffer. The telework policy would let employees, with approval of their managers, combine telework and alternative work schedules.

GSA wants to have half of its eligible work force teleworking at least one day per week by the end of 2010. More than 20 percent of eligible GSA employees now telework.

"With AFGE joining forces with the agency on this telework effort, we should reach 30 percent by the end of this calendar year, and be well positioned to achieve the next scheduled benchmark of 40 percent by the end of calendar year 2009," GSA Chief Human Capital Officer Gail Lovelace said in a June 9 statement.

GSA hopes increased teleworking will improve worker productivity while reducing energy use, traffic and pollution.

Negotiations on a telework policy for employees represented by another union, the National Federation of Federal Employees, broke down last week. NFFE said that GSA's representative walked out of a June 4 meeting. GSA is not commenting on the NFFE negotiations.

A Farewell, After Nearly 40 Years of Advocacy

The Washington Post
By Stephen Barr

In the early 1980s, when Congress moved to bring federal employees into Social Security, the outlook for the civil service pension system was uncertain. But Judy Park had a plan.

Park was the legislative director for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), and, with the help of colleagues and a consulting firm, she spent two years building consensus among unions and employee associations on how to revamp federal retirement.

The effort helped develop the framework for what became the Federal Employees Retirement System, which provides today's retirees with Social Security benefits, a modest annuity and the opportunity to invest in the Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k)-type program. NARFE's plan also preserved the fiscal stability of the old Civil Service Retirement System, a traditional pension program, for workers who wanted to stay with it.

Park retired from NARFE at the end of May, after nearly 40 years with the association. She joined the group in 1968, only four years out of college, and became NARFE's first legislative director in 1976, when the group decided it needed a legislative and lobbying department.

"It really hasn't been like being in the same job all the time, because the job, the organization and the Congress has changed so much," she said in an interview.

"It has been a lot of fun. I have had great experiences and lots of opportunities to help see changes come about. I have met and worked with great people."

When Park joined NARFE, it had about 130,000 members. The membership has tripled since then, and the association, founded in 1921, keeps watch over issues that are important to employees and retirees, such as retirement benefits, cost-of-living adjustments and health care.

When it became clear that Congress was going to revamp federal retirement, NARFE also worked to ensure some degree of equity among employees, so that they would mostly contribute the same percentage of their pay toward retirement, regardless of whether they were in the Civil Service Retirement System or the newer Federal Employees Retirement System, Park said.

While at NARFE, Park pushed for broader eligibility rules for survivor benefits, fought to have the government pay a higher share of health insurance premiums for employees and won a regulatory change so that federal retirees, along with employees, could participate in the "open season" and change their medical coverage as their health needs evolved.

"The most important thing for today's federal workers and federal retirees to do is recognize that they have got to involve themselves in the next several years to protect the benefits they now have," Park said.

In the global economy, an increasing number of companies are cutting or eliminating retirement and health benefits to save money and to become more competitive, she said. These fiscal realities are "sifting down and will hit the public sector. And when it hits the public sector, it will hit the federal government first," she predicted.

If that happens, Park added, "then we're going to see benefits begin to disappear, I'm afraid."

Although she has made a career working on issues and legislation important to federal employees and retirees, Park worked only two years for Uncle Sam, at the old Civil Service Commission, and does not receive the retirement and health-care benefits she fought to create and preserve.

She recently had to purchase supplement coverage for her Medicare benefit, and the search for the insurance "drove me crazy," she said, laughing. "I can't imagine what it is like for those poor souls who are confused by the system, because I felt clueless."

National Meeting of Park Officials Draws Fire

The Associated Press
By Jim Drinkard

Leaders of the National Park Service will gather next month at a private resort in the Utah mountains for a summit meeting that some career officials say feels more like a $1 million exercise in political promotion.

The national meeting, set for July 16-17 at Snowbird, Utah, will bring together more than 400 park superintendents and other top Park Service officials to hear from Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Park Service Director Mary Bomar, Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman and others.

Some of those attending the conference question the value of a meeting with political leaders who won't be around in just a few short months, when the Bush administration ends. They also say the timing is bad, coming in the month when many parks are having their busiest period of the year.

And they say the cost - estimated at $1 million or more for travel, rooms and meals - is an unnecessary burden for their budgets, already taxed by a backlog of unfunded maintenance.

None of the current park officials who were critical of the meeting would allow their names to be used, saying they feared retribution.

But Bill Wade, the retired superintendent of the Shenandoah National Park, says he's been hearing such comments for months from his former colleagues. "This is being done almost exclusively to try to bolster the legacy of the department and the political leaders and the Bush administration, in their last year," said Wade, head of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.

The agenda, he said, is to point out "all of the great things that they've done for parks and conservation, when most of us believe they've done far more harm than good."

The criticism isn't unanimous. Several park superintendents contacted said they view the meeting as an opportunity to get together with peers, compare notes and renew relationships.

"I think it's productive," said Sheridan Steele, superintendent at Acadia National Park in Maine. "You get not only the opportunity to hear from key leadership, but the interaction between people, formally and informally, is very valuable."

Park Service spokesman David Barna said, "It's really almost ridiculous that we don't do this more often." He noted that it's been 20 years since the last such gathering and said, "We're planning two days of meaningful work. This is not politics."

President Bush came into office pledging to eliminate a multibillion-dollar maintenance backlog in the park system, fixing decrepit buildings, roads, trails and sewer systems. He will leave office in January with a to-do list longer than the one he inherited.

At the same time, park operating budgets have been shaved, and some public services including educational programs and visitor centers remain curtailed. The administration has fought with conservationists over snowmobiles and other motorized vehicles, clean air standards and firearms in parks.

"Their actions have fallen significantly short of their commitments," said Ron Tipton, vice president of the National Parks Conservation Association.

A May 29 posting on the Park Service's internal Web site for employees says the July meeting will focus on goals such as how to reconnect Americans with their park system, develop new leaders for the system and highlight plans for the system's 100th birthday in 2016.

Those plans include a controversial proposal to raise private money to undertake projects in parks, including building new facilities and launching new programs. The Bush administration says that will mean new resources for the parks, but opponents say it will invite increased commercialism.

Two department officials said Bomar's original plans had called for three regional conferences this fall, each lasting three days and concentrating on training for park superintendents tailored to each region. In January, however, that format was abandoned in favor of the July national meeting.