The White House’s recently released budget proposal projects that executive branch employment in fiscal 2010 will cross the 2 million mark, up from the current year estimate of 1,977,000 to an estimated 2,119,000. That would be the first time since 1994 that executive branch employment was above that level, and represents an increase of 144,000 above the fiscal 2008 actual number.
However, a significant part of the 2009-2010 increase will be attributable to hiring of some 100,000 temporary employees for purposes of conducting next year’s census. Other major hiring initiatives in the upcoming year are to include:
* DoD, insourcing about 13,800 contractors, 2,500 of them in the acquisition field, and adding 1,600 more acquisition personnel;
* DHS, hiring about 7,000 employees in border security and improved enforcement of interior immigration laws;
* Justice, adding about 3,000 employees for combating financial fraud, civil rights enforcement, prosecuting immigration violations and overseeing the federal prisoner population;
* VA, adding about 10,000 employees to support increased medical care services to veterans and to improve benefits processing;
* SSA, adding about 1,600 employees for program integrity, improve service in field offices and address the backlog of disability cases.
Other projected increase include the IRS, for improving program integrity and improving collection of taxes due, State, to increase foreign service positions, Labor, to better enforce worker safety laws, and EEOC, to help reduce the backlog of pending complaints.
