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By: FEDweek StaffDespite numerous reports warning about the risks of high vacancy rates among federal cyber positions and years of initiatives by federal agencies and Congress, more than a third of such positions remain unfilled, according to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
That commission, created by the 2019 DoD budget law to address the nationwide shortage of such skills, said that agencies now have some 39,000 vacancies compared to an employed workforce of some 75,000.
Challenges include: a lack of coordination among agencies that has led to duplication of efforts and a lack of understanding of how resources should be best used; inconsistencies in data collection about the cyber workforce and the lack of a mechanism to share findings; the existence of special authorities at some agencies but not others, “which exacerbates an already difficult cyber hiring challenge as those agencies compete for qualified people”; and assumptions that candidates must have a certain academic degree or certification to qualify for a job or that promotions should be based on time-in-service rather than competence.”
“While many human resources teams often — and understandably — hesitate to treat talent management in any one field differently than the rest of an organization, a sense of exceptionalism in cyber workforce development is well-founded. The confluence of discipline-specific barriers to effective talent management and the urgent imperative to mitigate cybersecurity risks warrants extraordinary measures in cyber workforce development,” it said.
Recommendations include: improve data collection and evaluation efforts underway under the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Assessment Act of 2015 and better share that information across agencies; create leadership and coordination structures for federal cyber workforce development efforts; establish priorities in federal cyber workforce development efforts, including efforts to promote diversity; standardize hiring and special pay authorities government-wide; and establish a cadre of HR specialists on hiring and career development for cyber positions.
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