From Dennis Cauchon’s great USA Today piece on the extreme degree of job security for federal employees, almost none of whom were fired or laid off even in last year’s grim economic conditions:
Only 27 of 35,000 federal attorneys were fired last year. None was laid off. Death claimed 33.
(h/t Andrew Grossman).
3 Comments
I agree that the federal workforce is larger than the founders intended and than is strictly necessary, but this article does not support that premise. I have an issue with the logic used here. The author takes one statistic (firings) then extrapolates to the conclusions he wants. He did the shallowest of investigations.
He quotes a college professor and a HUD spokesman. The professor’s comment is, characteristically, a generalization. I actually found the spokesman’s comment believable. Apparently Dennis did not because he did not investigate the hiring process for full-time federal employment.
In my area (Seattle-ish) there are several DOD facilities. Competition for the jobs is very stiff and the hiring process is at least as onerous as the firing process. Based on the many anecdotes I have heard from close associates, 6 months to a year of investigation (and yea, probably a bloated administrative process) is typical. The application itself is incredibly long. People who don’t really want the job don’t apply. Folks with sketchy backgrounds don’t make the cut.
Of course the majority of firings (60%) will occur within the first 2 years! A dirtbag is easily discovered.
At my own work, we have a saying about poor performance – recalibrate or replace. But just because someone is not a good fit in one job does not mean they need to be fired. With a large, nay, vast corporation like the federal government, there is such a variety of career paths that reassignment to a better fit is not that difficult.
Finally, I will credit some of the USA Today commenters with this one – all companies used to be like that. The question is, why are they not loyal to us, their employees now? (That’s a rhetorical question – the answer probably has filled volumes.)
Why do companies need to be more loyal than the employees are?
How many of the attorneys that died were returned to life as a result of grievance procedures?