The Coming Flood of Government Jobs

As the job news grows ever darker -- according to the Labor Department unemployment has now hit a 26-year high of 9.7% -- a ray of light is shining from one unexpected quarter: the federal government.

Job seekers line up for a career fair. As the job news grows ever darker -- according to the Labor Department unemployment has now hit a 26-year high of 9.7% -- a ray of light is shining from one unexpected quarter: the federal government.

(M. Spencer Green/AP Photo)

A golden age of work for the government is just now dawning, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, a group in Washington that promotes government employment. There are several reasons: cyclical turnover; fresh demand in areas such as homeland security and veterans affairs, driven by the post-9/11 terrorist threat and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the financial crisis, with the stimulus spending it has spurred.

In Pictures: The Coming Flood Of Government Jobs

By the fall of 2012, the Partnership estimates, the federal government will have hired 273,000 new workers for jobs the group calls "mission critical." In other words, those are all positions that are considered crucial and will definitely be filled. That's a 41% increase over the three previous fiscal years. The jobs will be scattered around the world, from Washington to Portland, Ore., and even to such far-flung places as Japan.

To compile its report, the Partnership approached 35 of the biggest federal agencies, each with 1,000 or more employees, and asked them for hiring projections. After crunching the data, the group determined the 10 categories of jobs that will have the greatest job growth.

Topping the list: Medical and public health. The Partnership projects that 54,000 positions will have to be filled in this area over the next three years. They include work for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians and occupational therapists. Because of the many U.S. soldiers returning from foreign wars, the Department of Veterans Affairs will be the most active employer, hiring 25,000 nurses and 8,500 doctors by 2012. One example of a medical job open now: chief of orthopedics in the Portland, Ore., office of the Veterans Health Administration, a post that pays up to $275,000 a year. (All the specific jobs mentioned in this article and in the accompanying slideshow can be found at the government's official jobs Web site, www.usajobs.gov.)