Applying for a job with the federal government can be a miserable experience. Announcements of vacancies are often written in arcane, incomprehensible jargon; applications can stretch for dozens of pages; one branch of an agency might not have any idea of the hiring needs of a second branch. This is not the opinion of jilted job-seekers. Instead, it was the frank ...

The government is developing a comprehensive database that will track the performance of federal contractors, according to a proposed rule published Thursday in the Federal Register. Click here to read the proposed rule The Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, which the General Services Administration will maintain, will integrate a handful of existing databases with new information provided by contracting ...

Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday encouraged federal agencies to incorporate into their daily operations the business practices they have instituted to meet the Recovery Act's transparency, efficiency and accountability requirements. "Running the risk of setting myself up for a test I may not be able to pass 18 months from now... I've asked, at the end of the day, ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since June 1983, as employers eliminated a net total of 216,000 jobs. The level of job cuts is less than July's upwardly revised total of 276,000 and is the lowest in a year. Analysts expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July's 9.4 ...

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 ...