THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603160383
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEVIN GALVIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
A generation ago, a job with the federal government meant lifelong security and even prestige.
But given the recent government shutdowns, campaigns to trim the federal payroll and a political climate hostile to Washington's bureaucracy, some wonder whether a career in public service is losing its luster.
The buffeting federal workers endured last year, from the attack on an Oklahoma City federal building through the shutdowns, has raised questions about Uncle Sam's ability to recruit the best and the brightest.
``The problem lies in attracting those high achievers who are now in college, those people who are idealistic and want to make changes,'' said John Sturdivant, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
It's a problem evident in Hampton Roads, which has 44,100 federal workers - the nation's largest concentration of federal civilian employees after Washington and Philadelphia, according to a federal report.
If you add state and local government workers, Hampton Roads has 136,500 government workers - the region's largest private workforce after the service industry, according to government statistics.
Joan Jacobs, a Health and Human Services analyst, said she and her colleagues have just caught up on the backlog of work that grew during the previous shutdowns.
``A lot of people feel discouraged, but in general it's amazing how highly motivated people are. In not too long, we got back in the groove,'' she said. ``And now they're starting again.''
To be a U.S. diplomat has long been a coveted career.
But an increasing number of students at foreign affairs schools are choosing private industry over public service, said F. Allen ``Tex'' Harris, president of the 12,000-member American Foreign Service Association.
The State Department canceled this year's foreign service entrance exam because it already has enough candidates to fill vacancies. Many slots will go to United States Information Agency employees who face layoffs.
``Earlier, diplomacy was seen as being a very special professional calling,'' Harris said. ``Today, based on the hard realities of funding . . . diplomacy is seen as being just another federal responsibility which is too big and needs to be cut.''
Sturdivant equated the two partial federal government shutdowns during the holiday season to ``a two-by-four across the bridge of the nose for federal workers.''
Policymakers, he said, should consider the long-term impact.
``We're going to have to have a government in the 21st century. I don't think any of us knows what it looks like,'' Sturdivant said, ``but we do know that we'll be asking those workers who are there to do more with less.''
Despite all this, applications for federal jobs have increased. According to the Office of Personnel Management, 8.56 applications were received per opening in the first quarter of fiscal 1996, compared to 5.96 a year earlier.
OPM spokeswoman Janice Lachance said more people may be looking at the government as a place to start their careers, not spend them. And some workers are accepting pay cuts to transfer out of agencies targeted by politicians to relatively safe departments such as Defense, Treasury and law enforcement offices.
``This has been a tragic year in which federal employees have just been pummeled,'' Lachance said.
``All of a sudden this was very personal,'' she said. ``It was their physical safety and it was their families' financial well-being.''
The plight of federal workers is part of a larger debate over the role of federal government in a new era.
Joseph Nye recently resigned as an assistant secretary of defense to become dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Under his direction, the Kennedy School is beginning a major study of the changing role of government in an information age and how it can become more flexible and less bureaucratic.
``The shutdowns clearly had an adverse affect on morale,'' Nye said. ``People who . . . in many cases worked extremely hard, well beyond the hours for which they were paid, were more or less told they were irrelevant.''
Any manager knows that morale is important to efficiency, and an efficient government is in everyone's interest: It accounts for 31 percent of the gross national product.
``We need a national debate in this country about what government can and can't do,'' Nye said. ``It represents a large portion of GNP, and we better learn how to do it right.'' MEMO: Staff writer Mylene Mangalindan contributed to this report.
KEYWORDS: FEDERAL CUTBACK LAYOFF CIVIL SERVICE by CNB