According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, between 2006 and 2015, 60% of the federal government's 1.8 million member workforce will be eligible to retire, and 40% are likely to do so within the next few years. Also, says OPM because of a hiring freeze in the 1990s (“Reinventing Government,” we think it was called) there’s not enough “bench strength” out here to fill all of these vacancies internally.
Where are federal human resource managers looking to fill the gap? Ironically, one might think, to retirees from the private sector, encouraging them to consider “encore careers” in service to the U.S. Government.  The Partnership for Public Service has issued a call to service to America’s non-federal baby-boomers, with their Fed Experience program.

Also, recruitment efforts for younger staff are being strengthened.  Many federal agencies are trying to build a recruitment pipeline that not only includes colleges with the Call to Serve Program, but also goes into high schools, where teenagers can be introduced to federal work through summer jobs, internships and scholarship programs.

Here’s the contest:

What is the average age of federal employees at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center? 

First person to guess the correct answer will win a NOAA Fisheries denim hat, an increasingly rare, out-dated, and no longer produced bit of memorabilia, not unlike a lot of us, it would seem! 

Posted February 16, 2007