Use of Incentive Payments Increases

Federal agencies roughly doubled their use of recruitment, retention and relocation incentive payments in 2007 versus 2006, according to a new OPM report. Overall, 41 agencies paid 32,484 incentives worth more than $207 million, with an average incentive payment of $6,394 during calendar year 2007. That broke down as: 7,716 recruitment incentives totaling over $57.5 million (average payment of $7,454); 1,974 relocation incentives totaling more than $23.1 million (average payment of $11,735); and 22,794 retention incentives totaling over $127 million (average payment of $5,573).