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Federal employee hiring freeze.

Reportedly military, public safety, and public health jobs are not subject to the new EO. The White House has not posted the actual text on their website yet though.
 
humbolt said:
Who said anything about 10's of millions of people suddenly unemployed, but you? If you were familiar with the proposal being floated, the reduction in the number of federal employees is to be largely achieved through attrition.
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While I'm not completely against the idea of reduction through attrition the downside is eventually you have a workforce almost completely in their 60's and that creates other problems.
 
azgreg said:
While I'm not completely against the idea of reduction through attrition the downside is eventually you have a workforce almost completely in their 60's and that creates other problems.
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Yeah. The hiring freeze can't be maintained indefinitely. This is usually when some incentive packages are promoted for those nearing retirement to nudge them along. Hopefully you end up with a little younger work force as a result. We'll see. In any case, at some point new hires have to be part of the deal.
 
The IRS hires a lot of seasonal employees...hummm.
 
humbolt said:
And end a bunch of these training junkets. I was forced to attend a few that were little more than paid vacations.
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Thats a good idea

I bet we could find a lot candidates for a federal RIF just by auditing expense accounts and travel vouchers to find fraud
 
AlbqOwl said:
The story--mind you I don't trust much of anybody in the media to get it right these days whether the distortions or error or omissions are intentional or unintentional--suggests that the hiring freeze will involve non essential employees or those who would be automatically furloughed in a government shutdown. And it does allow for exceptions when vital government services are involved.

It also says that Reagan also did this when he took office. Jimmy Carter did it three times during his four years.
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Yes and both Reagan and Carter asked OPM why with a hiring freeze in place -- as you mention Carter did it three times -- federal employees were still being hired.

The answer: contracts had already been signed for this new federal employee or that federal employee to be hired at a certain date forward. The contracts could not be cancelled without substantial penalties to be paid out by the feds. Employees full time and also part time.

The right sees all of this as their standard and cynical bureaucratic and leftwing conspiracy but it's been the hiring practice since the end of WW2 and it will continue to be the practice. If Trump doesn't know this then he's as stupid as he indicates or he's as cynical as Reagan and Carter were regal.

Methinks Trump should put a freeze on his ignorance.
 
Mac77 said:
Thats a good idea

I bet we could find a lot candidates for a federal RIF just by auditing expense accounts and travel vouchers to find fraud
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That's a tall order. There's a whole lot of that going on. Has been for decades. I think a lot of that could be eliminated by returning to zero based budgeting. If agencies have to justify their funding levels every year, such things disappear.
 
humbolt said:
That's a tall order. There's a whole lot of that going on. Has been for decades. I think a lot of that could be eliminated by returning to zero based budgeting. If agencies have to justify their funding levels every year, such things disappear.
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If we want to reduce the number of employees firing them for cause means they have limited appeals and do not collect retirement benefits
 
Tangmo said:
Yes and both Reagan and Carter asked OPM why with a hiring freeze in place -- as you mention Carter did it three times -- federal employees were still being hired.

The answer: contracts had already been signed for this new federal employee or that federal employee to be hired at a certain date forward. The contracts could not be cancelled without substantial penalties to be paid out by the feds. Employees full time and also part time.

The right sees all of this as their standard and cynical bureaucratic and leftwing conspiracy but it's been the hiring practice since the end of WW2 and it will continue to be the practice. If Trump doesn't know this then he's as stupid as he indicates or he's as cynical as Reagan and Carter were regal.

Methinks Trump should put a freeze on his ignorance.
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OK, there are contracts in place now.

At the very least there will be no new contracts in the future so sooner or later the payoff will be realized
 
wolfsgirl said:
From what I have read 3/4 of the White house staff would be considered non essential and be sent home during shutdown. Trump still hasn't filled all of these positions so would the hiring freeze prohibit him from filling those positions?


Three-quarters of White House staffers would stay home in a shutdown (Video) | TheHill
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Presidential appointees are not hired. The vast bulk of federal people among those elected, appointed, and hired are permanent federal employees protected under laws that makes firing them extremely difficult. So the only logical way to reduce the federal work force is via attrition. People will retire, quit, move on to other jobs, and they won't be replaced unless they are in critical positions. If there is nobody qualified to promote into those positions, THEN the President leaves open an option for a waiver so that those positions can be filled.
 
AlbqOwl said:
Presidential appointees are not hired. The vast bulk of federal people among those elected, appointed, and hired are permanent federal employees protected under laws that makes firing them extremely difficult. So the only logical way to reduce the federal work force is via attrition. People will retire, quit, move on to other jobs, and they won't be replaced unless they are in critical positions. If there is nobody qualified to promote into those positions, THEN the President leaves open an option for a waiver so that those positions can be filled.
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We can fire them more easily if they have committed any fraud during the past 5 years
 
Mac77 said:
If we want to reduce the number of employees firing them for cause means they have limited appeals and do not collect retirement benefits
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Where we find it that's fine. It's just a tall order to go back and review every expenditure. My thought would be to find the most egregious examples and prosecute the hell out of 'em. A few examples would serve notice to the rest.
 
Mac77 said:
We can fire them more easily if they have committed any fraud during the past 5 years
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I don't know how it will be under a Trump administration. Those employees charged with malfeasance in the Obama administration usually were placed on administrative leave with full salary or benefits or they resigned their jobs and started drawing full retirement while they moved on to other things.
 
humbolt said:
Stay at home parent? Slacker. Seriously, we could stand a little downsizing. There are roughly 22 million federal employees. We could get by with far fewer. If we just eliminated duplicate services we could save billions. I think the notion that we let attrition take it's course, consolidate duplicate services, and keep the hiring freeze in effect until we've reached a reasonable level of employment is a good idea. When the number of federal employees is twice the number of manufacturing employees, we have things a little skewed.
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Um, federal worker make up less than 2% of the US workforce. Get a little perspective.
 
humbolt said:
That's pretty much the case. I worked for HUD for a few years before I went on to more serious government service. Well over half of the money expended by that agency during my tenure was wasted - literally thrown away on useless things by employees who did next to nothing. It was at once an amazing and disgusting insight. The things that HUD "engineers" directed me to do were insane. I quickly reached the conclusion that these engineers were working for HUD because nobody else anywhere would have considered hiring them. Those people got themselves a job in which they could coast, wasting millions over millions to no good end. The spending frenzy as the end of the FFY approached was monumental. Use it or lose it was the rule, and nobody anywhere could suggest to them that perhaps losing some of it was the responsible course.
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There was a lot of "use it or lose" it when I served in the military too. Unbelievable waste. But I don't know a single politician with the nutsack to even suggest cuts in defense.

You know, last I heard, the US spends more on their military industrial complex than the next 7 nations all put together.

What about this? What say that we only spend more than the next 4 countries combined instead? Take the savings and put it in escrow in case we ever do need to spend more than the next 7 countries? And as the years pass, we take just half of the escrowed savings, that we didn't need to use and spend it on the people instead? Would y'all be cool with that?
 
Jack Hays said:
Then you should review the link. That 22 million figure is for federal, state and local.
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Whoops. I'm humbled. How'd I miss that?

The point remains that far more are involved in governance that manufacturing, however. Still, I should read more carefully.
 
Captain America said:
There was a lot of "use it or lose" it when I served in the military too. Unbelievable waste. But I don't know a single politician with the nutsack to even suggest cuts in defense.

You know, last I heard, the US spends more on their military industrial complex than the next 7 nations all put together.

What about this? What say that we only spend more than the next 4 countries combined instead? Take the savings and put it in escrow in case we ever do need to spend more than the next 7 countries? And as the years pass, we take just half of the escrowed savings, that we didn't need to use and spend it on the people instead? Would y'all be cool with that?
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No one else has our obligations or responsibilities.
 
humbolt said:
Whoops. I'm humbled. How'd I miss that?

The point remains that far more are involved in governance that manufacturing, however. Still, I should read more carefully.
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Had I focused on the fact that it was you I would have sent a PM.
 
humbolt said:
I said there were approximately 22 million federal employees - nearly double those employed in manufacturing. That's my perspective, and I clearly stated it. It also happens to be the perspective of BLS.

21,995,000 to 12,329,000: Government Employees Outnumber Manufacturing Employees 1.8 to 1
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I know you said that, and if we didn't have the massive numbers of manufacturing job losses since 2000, you would have to have some other nonsensical comparison.

The simple to understand perspective is to compare it to ALL US employment, it is less than 2% of the US workforce, it is INSIGNIFICANT.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
I know you said that, and if we didn't have the massive numbers of manufacturing job losses since 2000, you would have to have some other nonsensical comparison.

The simple to understand perspective is to compare it to ALL US employment, it is less than 2% of the US workforce, it is INSIGNIFICANT.
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I was in error. I apologize.

If it's insignificant, cutting the force shouldn't have a serious employment or economic impact.
 
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