US Government Ready to Hire Over 270,000 Workers

The U.S. federal government will need to hire more than 270,000 employees for "mission-critical" jobs by the end of September 2012, according to a newly released government-wide survey. The unprecedented government hiring binge is driven in part by the large number of baby-boomer age federal employees who will be reaching retirement age, says the survey.

Mission critical jobs are those jobs the various agencies consider essential to their success. According to the survey, Where the Jobs are 2009, most of the 270,000 new federal employees will be needed in five fields: medical, security, law enforcement, legal and administrative.

Detailed occupational hiring projections from Where the Jobs are 2009 include:

• Medical and Public Health -- 54,114 new hires
• Security and Protection -- 52,077 new hires
• Compliance and Enforcement -- 31,276 new hires
• Legal -- 23,596 new hires
• Administration and Program Management -- 17,287 new hires

Jobs to Meet National Challenges
The number of new hires reflects the government's need to tackle ongoing national challenges, like economic recovery, climate change and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the survey estimates that as many as 600,000 new government employees will be hired over the first four years of the Obama administration.

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