Where the Hiring Is Hot

By Joe Davidson
Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Every day seems to bring more bad news about newspaper colleagues around the country losing their jobs. The auto industry is shedding workers faster than gas-guzzling SUVs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says layoffs "were the highest for the month of June since 2003."

Although the economy is in a funk, there is one employer who expects to hire big time in the coming years -- Uncle Sam.

"Most experts agree that the government will need to replace at least a half million federal employees in the near future," says a recent report by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The board preceded that statement with an almost lyrical explanation of why so many hires will be needed: "The upcoming wave of expected retirements may be a tsunami (as some predict) or it may have the erosive effect of a constant crashing of smaller waves upon the beach."

That beach image certainly is attractive this time of year, but I digress.

Although the federal hiring process needs serious repair, there's a surge of federal jobs moving to private contractors and federal pay scales fall short of those in private industry, the federal government remains an attractive place for job seekers.

Thousands of potential employees, many of them summer interns, attended a career fair last month sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service in the stately National Building Museum. "Despite the nation's grim job forecast, the federal government is on a hiring spree," the group says. "According to the organization's research, Uncle Sam needs to fill 193,000 mission-critical jobs by September 2009. There are federal jobs available in practically every interest and skill area, in all 50 states and around the world." Mission-critical positions include those in public health, engineering and accounting.

The young folks at the fair had an optimism about federal employment that's refreshing during economic doldrums.

Tobin Bradley, 34, became interested in public service while watching his dad, a city manager in California. Speaking to the fair's participants before they stood in sometimes long lines to speak with agency representatives, Bradley said he asked his father "How can I do what you do, but on a bigger scale and not worry about potholes?"

Potholes? Not hardly. Bradley is a 10-year State Department employee on loan to the National Security Council, where he is director of NATO and Western Europe.

While most of the people at the fair were young, Veola Frazier symbolized the opportunity the government has to recruit older folks. She's 62 and says she lost her job as a nuclear medicine technologist in February.

"I've been fiercely in search for a job," she said. "Some tell me I am overqualified."

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

· Education Department 22 percent

· Energy Department 22 percent

· National Science Foundation 22 percent

· General Services Administration 22 percent

· Interior Department 21 percent

· Labor Department 21 percent

· Treasury Department 21 percent

With that forecast, you'd think Uncle Sam could find a job for applicants like Frazier, who is still looking "frantically."

"At this point in time," she said, "I'm ready to scrub floors and wash windows."

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report. Contact Joe Davidson atfederaldiary@washpost.com.