Brain drain
Half of all federal workers can retire in five years. will government be able to replace them?
Vila Hunter, 80, has been a fixture at the Department of Veterans Affairs for 56 years--and isn't about to leave. She came to Washington in 1942 from the family dairy farm in Wisconsin to work at the War Production Board. She went home after the war but soon returned to Washington and has been working at the VA ever since--currently compiling dozens of statistical reports. "There's a great deal of detail, but it's not drudgery," she says. "It's a matter of providing accurate information so that everything can work properly."
Hunter, certainly, is a national treasure. She also is an anomaly in the federal workforce, having stayed on way past the age at which many of her colleagues have retired. Indeed, the labor pool of 1.6 million civilians--the largest in the country, with 85 percent of its members outside Washington--is facing a retirement crisis. Roughly half of current employees will be eligible to retire between now and the end of 2008--including almost 70 percent of supervisors. More than 7,100 air traffic controllers, many of whom were hired after President Reagan fired striking controllers in 1981, could leave over the next nine years as they hit the mandatory retirement age of 56. That's close to half the agency's current roster. Though hiring at many agencies has picked up in recent years, replacements will be needed for a vast number of positions that are opening up after a period of hiring freezes and lackluster recruiting.
The graying extends across the board and transcends political debate about how much government should do. Scientists and engineers who are over 60 at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration outnumber those under 30 by nearly 3 to 1. Because of downsizing in the '90s "we weren't replenishing our workforce," says Vicki Novak, NASA's assistant administrator for human resources. It's estimated that 43 percent of the 650,000 civilians at the Department of Defense--far and away the largest federal employer of civil servants--will be eligible to retire in the next five years. Government wide, 60 percent of federal employees are over 45, compared with 31 percent in the private sector. The largest single block--311,000 post-World War II baby boomers--is in the 50-to-54 age range, followed by 305,000 who are 45 to 49. Among the government's 62,000 computer operations specialists, nearly 80 percent are over 40.
The coming "brain drain" is the result of many factors: benefits that can encourage federal workers to leave after they have put in their 30 years (sometimes to pursue a second career), the frustration with bureaucracy and outdated personnel practices, and more lucrative opportunities outside the federal cocoon. Some of those reasons make it difficult for federal agencies to lure the best to replace the departed. "There's often a negative attitude about government work today," says Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and chairman of the blue-ribbon National Commission on the Public Service.
Inducements. To stem the outflow, the feds are fighting back with retention bonuses and other financial attractions, but the case of William Campbell shows the scope of the challenge facing those who manage the federal troops. Campbell's 30 years of government service have found him writing regulations for oil tankers, helping develop navigation systems and managing finances for the U.S. Coast Guard, and, most recently, holding a top human resources post at the Department of Veterans Affairs. "My boss called me in for 45 minutes to convince me to stay," says Campbell, but the financial inducements for leaving--including a pension of about $80,000 a year--are hard to ignore. He estimates that staying with the government for an additional five to eight years could cost him as much as $900,000 in lost income compared with what he could earn by combining a pension with a second career. "I am not complaining," he says. "To many Americans my compensation is a princely sum. But I can't ignore the numbers."
Recognizing the magnitude of the challenge of replacing a huge swath of their workforces, some agencies have borrowed a page from private industry and begun to market themselves more aggressively to would-be applicants. The GAO, for example, has renamed itself. The nonpolitical investigative arm of Congress was known until last July as the General Accounting Office. Now it's the Government Accountability Office. "Accounting sounded like we were just balance sheets and financial statements," says Sarah Jaggar, managing director of recruitment and employment services. "Accountability gives a broader sense of our work to assess how government programs are being carried out."
Eye-catching. NASA is bolstering its presence on campuses and other venues with a unified front. In the past, different centers within NASA might staff their own separate booths at job fairs and other events. Now there's just one for all of NASA, and it's searching widely. Earlier this month a recruiting team attended a conference and career fair in Texas held by the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists. Next month recruiters will visit the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, N.Y.
In addition to contending with swelling retirement among the population as a whole, the Social Security Administration has launched an effort to deal with its own retirement wave over the next 10 years, when up to 38,000 of its current employees will be eligible to retire. Eye-catching recruitment posters and brochures now sport a new slogan: "Make a difference in people's lives and your own." Monetary incentives such as an above-minimum starting salary, reimbursement for travel to a first post, and payment for interview expenses may also be used to nab a good prospect.
The Department of Health and Human Services is both filling slots and nurturing future senior managers. It boasts a new "emerging leaders program" that puts selected young hires through a two-year training and mentoring regimen that rotates them through an assortment of assignments.
In the meantime, some skilled employees are staying on past their retirement eligibility to help with the labor crunch. At the government's Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where enriched uranium is stored and nuclear weapons are refurbished and dismantled, nuclear engineer and site manager William Brumley was eligible for retirement in 2003 at age 55. But he has postponed his departure to early 2006 to shepherd major renovations. "I wanted to see these get at least a little further along," he says. But after that, finding a replacement with his range of skills and experience won't be easy, says a National Nuclear Security Administration official.
Job realities. One obvious solution is to entice more young people into government work. But that won't be easy. While a survey earlier this year for the Council for Excellence in Government found that 47 percent of young adults 17 through 24 felt that the most appealing feature of government work was "helping people and making a difference" --up from 33 percent in 1997--only a third said a government career might appeal to them, down from about 40 percent two years ago.
And realities can frustrate best efforts. Bureaucratic routine may dull innovation. Inadequate or dismal working conditions can be discouraging. Inbred and inflexible managers may stifle enthusiasm. Job ratings and salaries--despite efforts at reform--may not always reward merit.
Nevertheless, a GAO report this year concluded that in the past few years more progress in hiring and personnel practices has been made than in the past 20. And government pay for some positions is surprisingly competitive--often supplemented by generous retirement and other benefits. One survey of 35 federal jobs in the Baltimore-Washington corridor in 2003 found that nearly a third of them paid better than their private-sector counterparts. For instance, the average federal senior budget analyst listed in the study earned $69,300; a civilian in a similar position earned $62,500. A "Systems/Electronics Engineer VI" in government service earned $115,600 on average, while the civilian equivalent brought home $112,200. The average salary for a medical technologist was $50,100--11.6 percent more than for a nongovernment employee doing the same kind of work.
And then there are the intangibles. "The potential for government is that there are a lot of people who are interested in making a difference and are looking for challenging careers," says Patricia McGinnis, president of the Council for Excellence. President Kennedy famously told Americans to ask what they could do for their country. Today's generation--often unaware of the promise of government work--is "the not-asked generation," says McGinnis.
As it turns out, one might not have to ask too hard. Enectali Figueroa dreamed of space exploration when he was growing up in Puerto Rico and now at age 33 is an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. An aspiring astronaut, he turned aside academic and business overtures after getting a graduate degree from Stanford. A stint helping design roller coasters at Walt Disney Imagineering couldn't compete with "going into space and beyond," he says.
At the State Department, applications are flooding in for the Foreign Service in a continuing 9/11 bulge, says W. Robert Pearson, director general of the service. The pull for some, he says, is that "even an entry-level foreign service officer may be called upon to make a critical decision." In fact, a hallmark of much government service is the ability of ambitious newcomers to soon be in the thick of things.
But a youth movement doesn't address one pressing need: recruiting more mid-level and senior employees to counter the outflow of experienced, longtime employees. The government simply doesn't have "the bench strength" to fill all its openings internally, warns a recent report from the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. "It is not enough to grow management from within while ignoring pools of talent from the outside."
Still, at all levels, a big complaint from potential hires is the process involved in getting a government job. Confusing applications and an often interminable wait before a decision is made are two common turnoffs. "Government methods of recruiting and hiring are often so troublesome that they lose a lot of good people because of the frustration," says Volcker.
Getting snappier. Unfortunately, too, many government jobs are a lot more exciting and interesting than their description. A past notice for a technical consultant slot at the Department of Energy, for instance, woodenly described the job as "using all your communication and scientific skills to ensure that the proper environmental, safety, and health programs are developed and implemented." A new snappier come-on: "You will serve as a technical consultant in overseeing environmental, safety and health programs that protect workers as well as the American public."
The new attempts at outreach are overdue, according to experts. "You can't wait for the talent to come to you," says Mark Abramson, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, which studies and reports on government operations. One sign of progress is a growing number of daily visits to the government's main online job site ( www.usajobs.opm.gov ). Public-interest groups are also helping out. Career hunters can go to the "Work for USA" section at www.calltoserve.org and download "Red White & Blue Jobs," which lists government careers and agencies and provides hints for the job application process.
And the private sector may be losing some edge because of crimped pensions, costlier benefits, waves of downsizings, and a desire for a better balance between work and family--one area where the government outshines many private firms.
The new steps may still not be enough to reverse the impending personnel crisis in the federal government. But to many, they are an important and long overdue change in direction that may once again make a career in public service attractive to a broader segment of the workforce. "Government workers have often been the punching bag of politicians, comedians, and the news media," says Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service. "But for people whose top priority is to make a difference rather than a dollar, the federal government is a great place to be."
Public-service challenge
To generate interest in working for government, U.S.News & World Report and Vibrant Institute have created a national online competition open to all U.S. undergraduate and graduate students. For information, go to www.publicservicechallenge.com .
WHAT GOVERNMENT PAYS
A sampling of titles and pay. The average federal entry salary in 2002 for college grads: $33,746
Average annual federal salaries
ATTORNEY $104,890
ASTRONOMER $104,322
ECONOMIST $83,453
CHEMIST $80,065
STATISTICIAN $76,539
COMPUTER SPECIALIST $74,229
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATOR $73,731
INTELLIGENCE ANALYST $71,482
LIBRARIAN $66,557
PATENT TECHNICIAN $60,264
CUSTOMS INSPECTOR $48,356
PARK RANGER $43,176
COMPUTER CLERK $37,188
MEDICAL TECHNICIAN $32,230
ALL OCCUPATIONS $58,282
Source: U.S. Office Of Personnel Management, June 2003
The Graying Bulge
Several factors have produced a large segment of workers nearing retirement.
[Chart data are unavailable]
[Chart labels]
Federal government employees by age (in thousands)
300 250 200 150 100 50
Under 20
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
50-54
55-59
60-64
65 or older
Source: Office of Personnel Management
USN&WR
Working for the Feds
Jobs with the federal government can be found all over the country, not just in Washington, D.C. This map reflects the number of federal employees in each state.
[Map is unavailable.]
Alabama 25,000-49,999
Alaska 2,000-24,999
Arizona 25,000-49,999
Arkansas 2,000-24,999
California 100,000-155,000
Colorado 25,000-49,999
Connecticut 2,000-24,999
Delaware 2,000-24,999
Washington, D.C. 100,000-155,000
Florida 50,000-99,999
Georgia 50,000-99,999
Hawaii 2,000-24,999
Idaho 2,000-24,999
Illinois 25,000-49,999
Indiana 2,000-24,999
Iowa 2,000-24,999
Kansas 2,000-24,999
Kentucky 2,000-24,999
Louisiana 2,000-24,999
Maine 2,000-24,999
Maryland 100,000-155,000
Massachusetts 25,000-49,999
Michigan 25,000-49,999
Minnesota 2,000-24,999
Mississippi 2,000-24,999
Missouri 25,000-49,999
Montana 2,000-24,999
Nebraska 2,000-24,999
Nevada 2,000-24,999
New Hampshire 2,000-24,999
New Jersey 25,000-49,999
New Mexico 2,000-24,999
New York 50,000-99,999
North Carolina 25,000-49,999
North Dakota 2,000-24,999
Ohio 25,000-49,999
Oklahoma 25,000-49,999
Oregon 2,000-24,999
Pennsylvania 50,000-99,999
Rhode Island 2,000-24,999
South Carolina 2,000-24,999
South Dakota 2,000-24,999
Tennessee 25,000-49,999
Texas 100,000-155,000
Utah 25,000-49,999
Vermont 2,000-24,999
Virginia 100,000-155,000
Washington 50,000-99,999
West Virginia 2,000-24,999
Wisconsin 2,000-24,999
Wyoming 2,000-24,999
Source: Office of Personnel Management;
USN&WR
[Map labels]
Washington, D.C.
Federal employees
100,000-155,000
50,000-99,999
25,000-49,999
2,000-24,999
Source: Office of Personnel Management
USN&WR
This story appears in the November 22, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.