Federal Employment

Displaced Federal Workers Can Be Helped by Expanding Existing Programs Gao ID: GGD-92-86 May 5, 1992

Due to base closures and realignments, the Defense Department (DOD) plans to cut nearly 230,000 civilian positions through fiscal year 1997. DOD and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) acknowledge that the large number of reductions will severely strain ongoing federal placement programs to find jobs for displaced federal employees. DOD and OPM have tried to help displaced workers by establishing the Defense Outplacement Referral System, which provides prospective federal, state, local, and private employers with the names and qualifications of registrants. DOD plans to add civilian DOD personnel seeking employment outside the federal government to the database. Despite these efforts, the database will not be a comprehensive list of job vacancies or job seekers. As currently designed, OPM's Federal Job Opportunities Listing does not include all federal job openings, and the Defense Outplacement Referral System does not include non-DOD civilian job seekers. Expanding these databases to include more jobs and job seekers would improve the federal government's ability to help displaced employees. In addition, given imminent DOD staff reductions, a timely resolution of eligibility issues for retraining workers is needed to ensure that displaced workers receive fair and consistent treatment and job retraining when it is needed most. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Federal Employment: Federal Displaced Workers Can Be Helped by Expanding Existing Programs, by Bernard L. Ungar, Director of Federal Human Resource Management Issues, before the Subcommittee on Human Resources and before the Subcommittee on Compensation and Employee Benefits, House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. GAO/T-GGD-92-38, May 6, 1992 (nine pages).

GAO found that: (1) in fiscal year (FY) 1991, neither DOD nor OPM placed a high proportion of registrants in new jobs; (2) since the demand for placement services is expected to dramatically increase due to the projected loss of 229,000 civilian positions through FY 1992, DOD and OPM are reviewing their placement programs to identify possible improvements; (3) linking and expanding existing federal job opening and job seeker databases would provide displaced workers with a more comprehensive listing of available federal job openings and employers with a more comprehensive listing of displaced employees seeking work; (4) expanding and matching the databases would cost about $2.2 million; (5) since states interpret eligible dislocated workers differently, displaced workers face significantly different eligibility standards for federally funded job retraining; and (6) DOL is attempting to resolve differing eligibility interpretations in order to minimize the adverse impact of base closures on civilian employees.

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