Worker Shortage in Washington D.C.
People complain about the size of the Federal Government, its costs and taxes, and how the size of it infringes upon the nation’s economy. Complaining of the size of government, Grover Norquist once said,
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
In yesterday’s Angry Bear, I included the plight of too few Air Traffic Controllers. It is a known fact Air Traffic Control is understaffed. There being understaffed may have contributed to the recent crash of a helicopter and a passenger airplane. This crash resulted in the deaths of ~70 people. Air Traffic Controllers are a part of the Federal Government.
What is the size of the Federal Government? Hard to tell by people numbers. If we were to look at the percent of Federal workers as compared to all other workers, it is a small percentage. Since the year of when Trump was born until now, the percentage has decreased from 4.5% to 1.5% of all US workers. Grover Norquist would be delighted.
The chart below depicts the percentage decrease in the percentage of Federal government workers as compared to all nonfarm workers.
From 1946 when Trump was born till 2023, the percentage of Federal Workers decreased from 4.5% to 1.5% of all nonfarm workers. Besides a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers, there are shortages of VA workers to include medical officers and nurses. This forces Veterans to go outside of the VA for care. There is a shortage of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) examiners. In which case banks such as Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank escape oversight.
Congress has not provided the resources needed to adequately the resources needed to adequately staff immigration courts. In 2019, there was a backlog of over a million immigration cases. Each year, the United States loses tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue disproportionately from the wealthiest individuals and corporations due to understaffing.
I have only touched upon a portion of this article. The federal government is not adequately staffed to fully and effectively address the needs of the American people. The examples of the understaffing of the federal government discussed here are not the full story. There are other federal offices in similar predicaments.
Other measures show that Congress has continued to place more demands on the federal workforce without a commensurate increase in staffing. Some may argue that the shift of federal government work to private contractors (who can be more expensive) means that there is no understaffing. But the examples above believe that claim. The contractor workforce is either not in all of the critical areas needed or their numbers are insufficient to address the tasks. Either way in comparison, the federal government is too small.
DoD weapons system management especially upfront R&D and development/procurement the problem is not numbers its is delayed workforce development and qualification with a negative impact on performance in that critical complex business area.
My time in acquisition saw up trend manning in the 1980s, decline during peace dividend, more contract support and a rise of civil servant in 2010s.
DoD increased training and education programs in the 2010’s.
DoD operates around 25% of the CONUS air traffic system and I worked a couple of joint equipment programs with FAA tech management. From what I saw the personnel processes exist for training critical personnel, and systems technical management is passable. The managers I worked with recognized the importance of safe flight for all the “souls” in the air. It is a tough job and stress causes attrition as well as aging work force. A lot of controllers came on at once in the PATCO turnover, a job lump.
Sort of like the boomers retiring.
Human resources management in government is challenging
Any meaningful commentary on federal government workforce “downsizing” needs to include the Beltway bandits–private companies located in or near Washington, D.C., whose major business is to provide consulting services to the federal government. A lot of federal government employment got out-sourced to these high priced contractors. I expect that federal payrolls plus out-sourced contracts has risen to reflect contractors’ profits and price gouging.