The federal government has spent much of 2023 recruiting staff to meet growing demand for its services.
From citizen benefits to critical operations in the face of unprecedented circumstances, the Biden administration has insisted that some of the federal government’s largest agencies be able to provide staffing.
Department of Veterans Affairs
The Veterans Health Administration hired 61,000 new employees in fiscal year 2023, exceeding its goal by 17%. This occurred as the Veterans Benefits Administration increased its workforce by more than 20 percent, to more than 32,000 employees.
These staffing gains helped the VA cope with a surge in demand, including 3 million more appointments than the previous year, 2.4 million claims for benefits – 2 million of which were processed – growth of 6.5% in mental health appointments and a 4.6% increase in appointments with specialists. alongside growing demand for other services.
VA officials said that while recruiting efforts will continue, they will coincide with additional employee retention initiatives in the event of attrition.
The revenue agency has hired 11,000 new employees by the end of fiscal 2023 in an effort to narrow the unpaid tax gap that reached $688 billion in 2021.
IRS officials said they plan to hire up to 105,000 employees at the agency by fiscal 2025, 15,000 more than this year’s total, with the majority going to personnel control. This will help the agency recover $63 billion in annual revenue from underpaid tax returns.
That goal remains ambitious, however, as agency officials expect to lose a third of their workforce to attrition by fiscal 2025, forcing the IRS to onboard 52,000 to keep up.
The nation’s diplomacy has sought to address the workforce shortage caused by understaffing by increasing education and training resources in fiscal year 2023, alongside its larger effort to been hiring for over a decade.
To contribute to these goals, the State Department added a new 200,000 square foot building on the Foreign Service Institute campus to provide more training and education resources.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also touted the department’s “retention unit,” which is a data-driven plan to identify attrition trends and offer current employees incentives to stay. in the state.
Among the agencies seeking to address workforce shortages was the Federal Aviation Administration, which had not had a confirmed administrator in 18 months until Michael Whitaker took the helm in October.
During his confirmation hearing, Whitaker said hiring as many controllers as needed was a top priority, along with the possibility of expanding the talent pool by opening a second training academy for controllers.
A recent task force found that the FAA must maintain more than 14,000 controllers to meet demand, compared to the 12,000 the agency aims for in its current model and the 10,600 it had on staff.
Department of Homeland Security
An unprecedented immigration crisis, coupled with continued smuggling of fentanyl, at the southern border led President Joe Biden to request an additional $13.6 billion in funding in October to hire 6,000 employees at DHS and the Ministry of Justice.
Among them, the White House planned to add 1,600 new asylum officers for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 1,300 new Border Patrol agents, 1,000 new Customs and Border Protection agents and 1 470 Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys.
However, spending negotiations continued to take place on Capitol Hill until Congress recessed for the holidays, leaving in uncertainty a supplemental funding package that included support for Israel, Ukraine, and DHS , as CBP has had to reassign officers to meet enforcement demands and departmental operations. lack of funds.
And a bonus…
The Biden administration had nearly reached its goal of 6,000 new employees targeted to lead the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 initiatives by October.
The Office of Personnel Management said in October that agencies had exceeded their goal of filling 75% of the positions they would need to enforce the law by the end of fiscal 2023. An additional 1,000 employees are expected to join them. ‘next year.