The federal government fires so few of it’s workers that bureaucrats at a number of agencies are more likely to die in office than get a pink slip:
Death — rather than poor performance, misconduct or layoffs — is the primary threat to job security at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Management and Budget and a dozen other federal operations.
The federal government fired 0.55% of its workers in the budget year that ended Sept. 30 — 11,668 employees in its 2.1 million workforce. Research shows that the private sector fires about 3% of workers annually for poor performance, says John Palguta, former research chief at the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, which handles federal firing disputes.
…HUD spokesman Jerry Brown says his department’s low dismissal rate — providing a 99.85% job security rate for employees — shows a skilled and committed workforce. “We’ve never focused on firing people, and we don’t intend to start now. We’re more focused on hiring the right people,” he says.
Nobody’s fooled by that spin. The government hiring process is renowned for its absurdity. It screens for a lot of things, but most qualified is rarely among them.
(Hat-tip: John Stossel)
