Out-of-work Americans pining for a bright spot amid the still-bleak unemployment landscape should welcome news that the federal government is in need of new recruits. A lot of them.
The feds need to hire close to 273,000 people over the next three years to fill so-called “mission-critical” jobs across the U.S. and abroad, in part because more federal workers are inching closer to retirement age, a new survey of 35 federal agencies by think-tank Partnership for Public Service shows.
Perhaps not surprisingly, agencies in the public health and medical fields are in need of the most new bodies. A total of 54,114 people are in demand to fill positions in areas ranging from radiology to consumer safety, according to the study.
Job seekers should also look to the security, law enforcement, legal and administrative fields, all of which are projected to boom over the next few years.
Of course, as the Washington Post notes, the projections are just that - projections. Hiring campaigns could be slowed if more federal workers choose to put retirement off or if Congress refuses to put up the money to meet all the hiring needs. The government could also decide to outsource some of the jobs to contractors.
Still, the potential surge in full-time, government jobs should have many Americans dusting off their resumes in a hurry.
(An armed forces recruiting poster is shown outside the U.S. Armed Forces Career Center in New York’s Times Square in this March 6, 2008 file photo. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
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Although the prospects for an imminent global economic recovery have jumped, growth is not evenly spread across developed nations and particular challenges remain. The strength and consistency of the recovery is still unknown, though the likelihood of a double-dip recession is easing by the week due to the determination of governments and central banks to keep monetary and fiscal stimulus in place for some months yet. Japan and the UK are likely to suffer a particularly difficult 2010 and face the obstacles of deflation and sharp tax rises respectively though one common challenge persists across all developed nations; unemployment.
- Posted by Mike YoungI must say that the global recovery is certainly something we in the UK support, but we are held back by archaic governmental controls of our industry. I think the peers would jump in and join with the commoners to push us forward, if only reform in the house of Lords would happen to allow the hereditary peers more room to work on this I believe the whole country would respond more quickly.
- Posted by Viscount Mebling