Social Security Retirement Woes

From Government Executive:

As 78 million baby boomers near retirement, the Social Security Administration faces double trouble; not only will it have to provide benefit and pension services to this large retiree population, it also must address a retirement wave within its own workforce.

While many federal agencies have not yet been shaken by the mass exodus of seasoned workers projected in the next eight years, Social Security expects its retirements to peak by 2010. Currently, about 25 percent of its 61,000 employees are eligible to retire, including 60 percent of senior executives. "The retirement wave has doubled for us," says Reginald Wells, deputy commissioner for human resources and chief human capital officer at Social Security. "As the baby boomers are retiring and moving into more leisure activities, they are coming to us to register for that retirement, and our employees are retiring in record numbers." ...

"Our workforce is the lowest it's been since the [1974] supplemental Social Security income came into being," Wells says. "We're down to 61,000 employees, down from 85,000 at one point." ...

And while Congress has offered Social Security a bigger budget and more staffing flexibilities, Wells says, the agency still cannot replace every position one for one, and it's the commissioner's and managers' responsibility to pinpoint where the most urgent hiring needs are.