Thousands of jobs to be cut at DoD; memo

More than 300 top officers and senior executive service members in the Defense Department are about to lose their jobs. Secretary Robert Gates outlines manageme...

Compiled by Suzanne Kubota
Senior Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio.com

Thousands of federal employees and contractors are about to be shown the door on one of the five sides of the Pentagon.

In a memo, “Track Four Efficiency Initiatives Decision”, Defense Secretary Robert Gates directs the services and Pentagon agencies to make huge cuts in more than just spending.

The Federal Times reports the “positions include 176 civilian senior executive positions – 97 members of the Senior Executive Service, 21 senior level and scientific professionals, five Defense intelligence senior executives and 53 Defense intelligence senior level positions – and 33 highly qualified experts.”

Especially hard hit, reports DefenseNews, is the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), which has been “directed to eliminate 500 contractor support positions in 2011 and another 500 in 2012. This will save $225 million, according to the memo.”

Wired’s Danger Room reports that’s in addition to another “130 from the office of the undersecretary for policy and 364 from the military’s health care management organization”.

According to Federal Times, Gates said the department must lower drastically the maximum number of senior mentors and advisors (highly qualified experts or HQEs) it “allows itself to employ, from 2,500 down to 350 or less.”

“I think that’s a pretty substantial cut,” Carol Bonosaro, president of Senior Executives Association, which represents the government’s top managers, said of the civilian cuts. “Maybe I would have expected about 100 at most,” she told the Federal Times.

This story is part of Federal News Radio’s daily DoD Report. For more defense news, click here.

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