Number of Jobs Up for Bid Decreases

Despite a major effort from the White House promoting its “competitive sourcing” initiative, federal agencies in fiscal 2004 completed significantly fewer studies that put federal jobs up for possible conversion to contractor performance than they did in fiscal 2003, the Office of Management and Budget has reported. The OMB tally showed that agencies conducted 116 streamlined competitions and 101 standard competitions last year, compared with 92 and 570, respectively, in 2003, involving about 12,600 jobs, down by about 5,000 from the prior year’s total. In 2004, 76 job competitions were announced, potentially affecting some 9,600 jobs, compared with 73 and 7,400 jobs in 2003. OMB noted that restrictions written into certain agency spending bills had the effect of holding down the number of competitions.