By CityTownInfo.com Staff
September 4, 2009
A heartening report released Thursday indicates that the federal government is expected to hire close to 273,000 new employees over the next three years.
The survey of 35 federal agencies with more than 1,000 employees was conducted by the Partnership for Public Service, which attributed the surge in hiring to the large number of baby-boomer federal workers nearing retirement. The growth in job opportunities is also the result of the Obama's administration's plans to tackle enormous issues such as climate change, the recession, and fighting two wars.
"It has to win the war for talent in order to win the multiple wars it's fighting for the American people," explained Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership, who was quoted in The Washington Post.
The survey indicated that most of the new hires will be needed in medical, security, law enforcement, legal and administrative. The agency with the largest increase in expected hires is the Department of Veteran Affairs, which anticipates hiring more than 48,000 new employees by 2012.
"This hiring surge comes at a time of high national unemployment and a renewed enthusiasm for public service," said the report, which was quoted in CNNMoney.com. "For highly capable job seekers motivated by a desire to make a difference and improve the lives of Americans, there are no better possibilities than those provided in the federal civil service."
According to the study, the medical and public health area will require the most hires--over 54,000. The DVA alone is predicted to need more than 19,000 nurses and 8,500 doctors in the next few years as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And according to Ronald P. Sanders, chief human capital officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency expect to hire 5,500 people in the next year.
"It's a combination of how much turnover we expect and how much growth we expect in our budget," he said in the Post.
The jobs will not be limited to the District of Columbia. Almost 85 percent of federal workers are employed outside of the nation's capital, and more than 44,000 government employees work abroad.
