Federal Employees Get the Best Job Security
Job security has been an issue of serious concern for many Americans in the current global economic conditions. The solution to this problem comes in the form of a government job. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report recently stated that firing a federal employee is not easy at the moment. If the firing happens it takes a lot of time and in most cases it doesn’t happen at all.
The Facts about Federal Employees Job Security
The report stated that it can take about six months or even a year in some cases to fire a federal worker. The average timeline to dismiss an employee was nearly 250 days in the year 2013. In many cases, the firing didn’t occur at all. The number of fired employees was one in 500 in the report.
Views of General Counsel for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management
A former general counsel for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Joseph Morris thinks that firing any of the federal employees is very difficult even when there is a solid reason to fire the employee. He worked in the 1980s and created a list of likely steps to terminate a federal employee. The list was about 30 feet long. He thinks that if was asked to create a list again, the length of it may be longer than ever before.
An Example of the Job Security
An example of the lengthy processes of firing a federal employee is that the Department of Veterans Affairs takes at least 270 days to fire a nurse even if she does a grave mistake like operating on a veteran after drinking 5 beers in a casino.
Appealing Against the Decision
Even when an employee is terminated, he or she can revoke the agency’s decision of termination if the agency violates any law in terminating the employment. The employee can even get the help of a lawyer who has specific experience in the rights of federal employees as the rights of a government employee are very different from an employee working in the private sector. The employee can take the case in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) if the employment termination is proved to be unjust. Hence, people looking for a stable job where job security is as strong as it can get may want to apply for a federal government job soon.
