Feb 27, 2012

Social Security Workforce Declining Rapidly

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated figures for the number of employees at Social Security. Here they are, with earlier numbers for comparison purposes.
  • December 2011 65,911
  • September 2011 67,136
  • June 2011 67,773
  • March 2011 68,700
  • December 2010 70,270
  • June 2010 69,600
  • March 2010 66,863
  • December 2009 67,486
  • September 2009 67,632
  • December 2008 63,733
  • September 2008 63,990
  • September 2007 62,407
  • September 2006 63,647
  • September 2005 66,147
  • September 2004 65,258
  • September 2003 64,903
  • September 2002 64,648
  • September 2001 65,377
  • September 2000 64,521
  • September 1999 63,957
  • September 1998 65,629
     That's 6% decline since Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives. Just imagine what they could do with control of the White House and Senate.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

The current numbers are right in line with the numbers for a decade prior to the big hiring binge in 2009 and 2010.

The Republicans having control of the House has nothing to do with the drop in employment numbers. SSA has an older workforce and many are eligible for retirement and choosing that route. In my office, a heavy factor in the recent retirements has been a bad manager.

Anonymous said...

Agree with Anon 9:25. I don't think the current makeup of Congress has anything to do with the loss of employees anymore than it might have in the past. Take a two year pay freeze, the age of the workforce in SSA (one of the oldest in government in terms of age and service), the fact that many employees have topped out in their pay grades, and this is a pretty logical result.

Rising workloads with no additional staff is a huge factor as well. And the Band-Aid of rehiring annuitants is no solution.

Anonymous said...

And the Republican house is directly responsible for all the conditions you two cite. The Tea Party faction brought the government almost to a halt, and SSA suffered for it. As for retirees now merely exercising their right, all these events pushed them over the edge.

Anonymous said...

A10:29: Yes, but this isn't a unique situation, although the Teabaggers are certainly more extreme than any Republicans than I've ever seen. We've had tough budget situations under both parties' control of Congress and the WH. IMHO, one constant is that COSS (whoever he or she is) never seems to take a proactive and aggressive approach in addressing Congress what workloads SSA should and should not be processing. It always seems to be a "yes we can" approach to whatever initiatives, good or bad, Congress comes up with.

I do see that finally we have a "do less with less" mentality, but it's pretty early. Bottom line is that there's only so much that an agency can accomplish with a dwindling workforce.

Anonymous said...

The workloads are increasing and the workforce is not. This is very bad combination and this will result in delays in processing claims. Management has no problem hiring new supervisors but where are the service representatives. Management and labor need to start working together to produce a better product to the public.

Anonymous said...

Retirees are getting raises, not current employees!

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter which party is most to blame. Make no mistake that the result is going to be return to the ugly backlog of the Bush years, without the ability to command it be paid down. The commissioner's vaunted management initiatives had precious little to do with retiring the backlog -- only adequate staffing did.

Anonymous said...

The real kicker is the bills pending in Congress to change the federal employee retirement systems. One of them would result a about a 40% reduction in pension due to elimination of the FERS supplement.

Passing that one bill alone could pretty much ensure a catastrophic wave of retirements by those eligible to retire to avoid the effects of the bill.

Anonymous said...

"The real kicker is the bills pending in Congress to change the federal employee retirement systems. One of them would result a about a 40% reduction in pension due to elimination of the FERS supplement."

If they do that for future hires, fine, but if they do it to current workers, especially people that switched from CSRS, time to head to Washington with a lot of tar and feathers.

Anonymous said...

Why are all the vacancies for ODAR positions being advertised as term positions through USAjobs while positions with SSA Operations are advertised as permanent?

Anonymous said...

Term makes it easier to get rid of ODAR employees that do not follow the policy line of paying down the backlog.

Anonymous said...

But OGC is hiring attorneys!

Ridiculous when you consider how understaffed field offices are ....