The sequester cuts may be in place, but many federal agencies appear to still be hiring.
At a time when furloughs are on the table, by Monday at 6 p.m., more than 400 government job ads were posted.
Experts question the move and say it could shed light on just how these federal agencies will proceed in increasing their savings, either by attrition or letting people go.
"Every position you don't fill that isn't absolutely necessary is one less person that needs to be furloughed," Steve Ellis, vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said, according to The Washington Times.
Bill Frezza, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, shared his thoughts on the sequester and Tuesday's stock market rally on the CBN News Channel's Morning News, March 6.
Ellis did say that some positions people vacate need to be filled to meet agencies' core missions. But establishing core missions can often be unclear and many times easily justified in job descriptions by specific agencies.
"When you say mission critical, it's a phrase without meaning," Paul C. Light, a professor at New York University, said. "Everything's mission critical. Therefore, we have no way of knowing what would be mission critical in a job description versus what is not."
Of the jobs posted, nearly a quarter were in medical and public health, 67 were in clerical and management, and another 21 were in information technology.
Critics complain that hundreds of thousands of federal employees face furlough notices, while many of these job postings are to fill low priority jobs, such as museum director and drivers for the State Department.
The White House has issued a memo urging offices to consider closely the hires they make and warned against agencies hiring outside contractors in place of lost work from federal employees.
Under sequestration, $85 billion worth of spending cuts were set into motion for most federal agencies by the 2011 debt deal.
Social Security was spared, and other big entitlements such as Medicare face only minor trims.
Original Publication URL: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2013/March/Feda-Continue-to-Hire-Despite-Sequestration/
Discussion
Sign Up for Updates
