Bureaucrats Are Getting Older and…

According to the November 10^th Washington Post: “The share of the federal workforce under the age of 30 [excluding the military] dropped to 7 percent this year, the lowest figure in nearly a decade, government figures show. Overall, about a third of the private-sector labor force was born between 1980 and 1995, but younger workers make up only a quarter of federal, state and local government employees.” Obviously, conclude the experts, millennials seem to be rather turned off by the prospect of a government job. For those with key earning skills, the rolling freeze on government pay has pushed compensation way below comparable private sector pay, as much as 35%.

With angry presidential candidates screaming about how much they intend to slash governmental jobs, perhaps the once-assumed job security associated with public service work has also vaporized. Lower pay and frozen pay levels plus the imminent threat of downsizing cannot be viewed as attractive by super-qualified younger job-seekers. More than a few government studies have supported this seeming generational turn-off to government work.

But contrary to assumptions that millennials don’t cherish job security anymore, with pressing student debt and global instability, more recent studies suggest otherwise. And their attitude about government work may also have been misinterpreted. “[A] new study out [November 10^th] from Deloitte Consulting debunks many of these [negative millennial] assumptions, concluding that the picture for millennials in government is actually a lot brighter than anyone thought.

“Deloitte decided to question some of the conclusions of its own inquiry on the subject, done last year with the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. It showed the number of federal employees under 30 at their lowest levels since 2005, dropping by more than 45,000 people since 2010…

“The new study looked at data from U.S. Census Bureau on the public sector workforce and the National Opinion Research Council at the University of Chicago. Here are four myths the report debunks about the youngest public servants at the federal, state and local levels:

“1. They have higher turnover rates than older generations.

“The studies that support this view are often based on tenure — how long employees have held their jobs — rather than true turnover rates, Deloitte found. But the tenure measure is a problem, since millennials tend to go into government at older ages than previous generations.

“The state and local government turnover rate for 25 to 34 year-old employees was approximately 5 percent in 2006, but declined to less than 3 percent in 2013, the study found.

“2. They’re less passionate than older workers about their jobs in government.

“The Office of Personnel Management’s annual survey of federal workers shows that millennials have the same morale as older workers, and in recent years it’s been low. But young people in government are not distinguished by worse morale than anyone else.

“3. They don’t stick around — they’ll decamp to the private sector in a heartbeat.

“Various experts have sounded this alarm, Deloitte says, but the data doesn’t bear it out. It shows a decline in government workers age 20-35 who plan to look for work in the coming year.

“Millennials do like public service. But obstacles get in the way of government keeping them for at least a chunk of their careers, chief among them the slow hiring process.

“4. It’s harder to recruit them for public service than previous generations.

“The study says there’s no conclusive answer to this right now. Hiring officials worry that millennials are harder to recruit because they have so many options at nonprofits and private companies. But the number of students getting degrees in public administration is up.

“A tightening labor market after the Great Recession has made it easier for young people to be choosier about jobs, the report says. The supply of millennials entering government is not keeping up with older generations. But part of the problem is that government is hiring less overall. And partly because of this slump, recruiting for public sector jobs is slipping. ‘We’ll have to say that the jury is still out on the difficulty of recruiting millennials into government jobs,’ the study concluded.” The Post. But we need their new ideas!

Sure some accommodations in benefits packages need to allow more employee choice among millennials, but when they are welcomed and actively recruited, moved into meaningful roles within government, they do in fact like the work and find public as compelling as any other generation. It also might be nice if politicians would stop generic bashing of civil servants, cease castigating results when Congress itself has purposely defunded or underfunded the government agency charged with implementation. Maybe politicians should defund themselves; think about the savings there!

I’m Peter Dekom, and a change in the demographics of government (new ideas, new attitudes, new values) has to be part of the “big change” everyone seems to think that our public bureaucracies really need.