The federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for "mission-critical" jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday. The numbers also reflect the Obama administration's intent to take on several enormous challenges, including the ...

PRESS RELEASE GAO NAMES NEW HEAD OF ITS OFFICE OF OPPORTUNITY AND INCLUSIVENESS WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 24, 2009)—The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has announced that Reginald Jones, a labor and employment attorney and former Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), has joined the legislative branch support agency as Managing Director of its Office of Opportunity and Inclusiveness. ...

Unemployed people living on sink estates could be relocated to areas with job vacancies as part of a Government plan to break up Britain's 'poverty ghettos'. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the move was designed to help those 'trapped' on council estates in unemployment blackspots. The plan, which is still at an early stage, carries echoes of the ...

John Berry fired the first salvo for how to "reinvigorate" and "unshackle" all aspects of federal human resources. The director of the Office of Personnel Management laid out Monday some initial ideas about changes that he hopes could bring agency hiring, firing, recruiting and retention practices in line with other Fortune 500 companies. Listen to WFED's Federal Drive "Our hiring system ...

WASHINGTON — The $787 billion economic recovery package also is stimulating growth in the federal government as agencies hire thousands of workers and spend millions of dollars to oversee and implement the package, according to government records and spokesmen. Fourteen of the top federal agencies responsible for spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act say they've hired about 3,000 workers ...

On Nov. 3, 2008, Elizabeth Colton, a Foreign Service officer, received an e-mail with good news: She had been offered a two-year posting as chief of the political-economic section at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers. "Congratulations!" wrote Maggie Nardi, acting director of the Office of Maghreb Affairs in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. "On behalf of NEA and ...

A gunman fatally shot one federal employee and wounded another at a Las Vegas federal courthouse before being killed by U.S. marshals on Monday morning. The victims were a court security officer and a deputy U.S. marshal, who was listed in stable condition. "I can receive no news more grim or sobering than word of a line-of-duty death or injury to ...

A coalition of 36 labor unions have rejected a Senate provision to repeal the Pentagon's National Security Personnel System, claiming that it wouldn't do enough to ensure that employees are paid fairly. The language, included in the Senate's 2010 Defense authorization bill (S. 1390), would eliminate the NSPS within a year. But it also would give the Defense Department the opportunity ...

Federal employees and their unions should remember Oct. 7, 2009: It's the day they got to cross several items off their wish list. The conference committee working on a compromise version of the Defense authorization bill (pdf) delivered several long-sought reforms impacting current and former federal employees, their salaries and the way the government measures their performance. The big one: a ...

WASHINGTON - At a time when the White House is projecting the largest deficit in the nation's history, Uncle Sam is trying to recover billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from its own employees. Federal workers owe more than $3 billion in income taxes they failed to pay in 2008. According to Internal Revenue Service documents, 276,300 federal employees and retirees ...

Imagine you've just been hired to manage the Washington Nationals. Your contract is contingent on your ball club making it to the World Series. But the team's owner says you have to take the field with essentially the same players you inherited -- despite their losing record. Sound absurd? Of course, but it isn't far from reality, considering an administration proposal ...

There are a lot of questions about pay & benefits that have been cropping up lately, and Senior Correspondent Mike Causey spoke with three experts to get the answers for you. His guests on this week's show were: Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executive Association; Jessica Klement of the Federal Managers Association; and Dan Adcock, legislative director of the National ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal employees whose regional costs of living entitles them to higher compensation will see no increase in their "locality pay" percentages next year, President Barack Obama informed Congress on Monday. Workers who receive pay over and above the base federal rates _ because of higher living costs and greater private-sector pay in their regions _ would have been ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House environmental adviser under fire for inflammatory statements made before he joined the administration resigned after what he called a "vicious smear campaign against me." Van Jones "understood that he was going to get in the way" of President Barack Obama's agenda, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday. The resignation was disclosed without advance ...

Miami house painter Alexis Marichal was driving his work truck when police pulled him over, placed him under arrest and sent him to jail for a night. His crime: not having a business sign on the side of the vehicle. In court later, the judge dismissed the charge after Marichal proved he had purchased the sign and was a legitimate painter. ...

President Obama's executive order expanding job opportunities for veterans in federal agencies made headlines last week. He also marked Veterans Day by signing into law a bill that makes it easier for the families of service members to navigate the complicated landscape of rules governing their benefits during reassignments. The 2009 Military Spouses Residency Relief Act (S. 475) allows the husbands ...

WASHINGTON, DC - President Obama on Wednesday ordered federal agencies to extend a range of benefits to same-sex domestic partners of their employees. "For far too long, many of our government's hard-working, dedicated [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] employees have been denied equal access to the basic rights and benefits their colleagues enjoy," Obama wrote in a memo to the heads ...

Most people who have earned a paycheck probably have discovered that the federal income tax withholding formula can be complicated. But changes to withholding stemming from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are causing even more head-scratching than usual this year, both inside and outside the federal workforce. "When the tables first came out, there was a flurry of questions," ...

The gap between average pay for federal and private sector workers rose 1.25 percent during the past year, the Federal Salary Council reported on Thursday. The council did not recommend a specific pay raise for federal employees in 2010. The pay gap between public and private sector workers increased from 25.17 percent in 2008 to 26.42 percent in 2009. The salary ...

The nation's unemployment rate stayed flat at 9.5 percent -- with private hiring unable to outweigh government layoffs. The number of government workers dipped by 202,000 -- mostly the loss of 143,000 paychecks as temporary employees hired to conduct the decennial census wrapped up their work. Meantime, private payrolls inched up by 71,000 people, according to the Labor Department. Unemployment, which ...