What you also seem to forget is that the federal workforce has been steadily decreasing. According to the Dept. Of Labor Statistics, and the Office of Management and Budget, currently its at it's lowest proportion of the population since before President Eisenhower. According to the same sources over 15,000 were fired last year for cause.
But the one area in the Feds that is really growing is Federal contractors. According to the DOL, there are over 7.5 million federal contractors. There are BTW less than 3 million federal employees. Again the DOL states that the average pay for these contractors is considerably higher than Federal employees. The differences are even created when you look at the costs of the individual employee, again it costs taxpayers more for the average contractor than the average federal employee. >That definitely is a piece of picture. The other side of it, however, >is that the Federal government tends to have very specialized >employees who are not easily replaceable. You can't just go down to a >work center or post an ad on Craigslist and pick up a qualified air >traffic controller tomorrow. Look at the thousands of people who are >being laid off from NASA right now due to the demise of the space >shuttle program. They really don't have comparable jobs anywhere else >in the country. Probably not anywhere else in the world, really. >Furthermore, the specialized jobs that a lot of the federal workforce >does isn't really tied to economic cycles. The CDC is doing CDC stuff >regardless of whether we are in a recession or in a boom time. > >So the low attrition is a combination of specialization, different >funding patterns and a rules structure designed to make sure that >people, once trained, stay in those roles and aren't easily tossed out >due to political pressure, etc. I think that a lot of federal agencies >have taken it too far and that, as you noted, there is an imperative >to get incompetent people out of those jobs, especially in vital >services (like air traffic control). Fundamentally, however, I don't >believe that it is the primary cause behind the statistics cited >regarding attrition. > >Judah > >On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 1:22 PM, GMoney <gm0n3...@gmail.com> wrote: >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:340714 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
