Where the Hiring Is Hot

The government must replace a half-million workers soon, the Merit Systems Protection Board says. (Bigstockphoto.com)

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Frazier worked at D.C. General Hospital for almost 25 years, until she took another job seven years ago. "It's really, really, really tougher now."

She has applied at such places as CVS and Shoppers Food Warehouse, Providence Hospital, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whose representative she met at the fair.

As Frazier tries to get hired by the government, many others her age are already gone or planning to go soon.

With about a third of its full-time workers expected to quit, mostly through retirement, in the next four years, a report by the partnership says "the government is ill-prepared and ill-equipped to replace this talent." Government effectiveness will be particularly hard hit because many of the retirees are in high-level and supervisory positions.

Consider these Office of Personnel Management figures showing the top 10 agencies with highest percentages of employees projected to retire by 2012:

· Federal Aviation Administration 26 percent

· Department of Housing and Urban Development 26 percent

· Social Security Administration 23 percent

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