Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO summarized issues relating to the need to acquire and retain a competent and motivated federal work force.

GAO noted that: (1) to attract and retain a high-quality work force, the government must sustain the initiatives begun in the last 4 years and respond to other emerging issues; (2) federal managers do not always have the flexibility, systems, or processes they need to downsize the federal work force effectively; and (3) issues facing the federal government include modernizing employment practices, enhancing federal work-force management, fully implementing pay reform, improving federal recruitment efforts and labor-management relations, and reforming health benefits.