More People Want to Work for the Gov’t…for Now

June Kronholz wrote in Thursday’s WSJ about how the country’s big problems have created a new cool place to work….the US Government. Could it be true that today’s brightest stars will be flocking to work for the Obama-led federal government? Well, so far more than 300,000 of the people on Obama’s email list from the change.gov website have sent in applications.

The CIA too, said that more than 130,000 people have applied for jobs there this year…a record. One Yale professor compares it to the 1930s when the New Deal attracted talented people who all wanted to work for the exciting Roosevelt administration.

But the jaded experts (who already work for the federal government) say it’s not getting people in, it’s keeping them there that is the real challenge. A woman who worked on Bill Clinton’s Reinventing Government program said “They get their feet wet and they’re out.” Here are the stark numbers to back it up: 2007 hires: 264,000. Departures? 251,000. After two or three years, these young ‘eager beavers’ throw up their hands in despair. It seems that the biggest complaint is the sluggishness of an employer with 2.7 million civilian workers.