Jobs in home care are expected to grow by 40 percent in the next decade to meet demand from older adults and people with disabilities. Despite being part of one of the fastest growing industries, many home care workers did not have federal minimum wage and overtime protections until 2015. The Department of Labor extended these protections through a regulation known as the Home Care Rule. We compar...

The Office of Personnel Management maintains USAJOBS—a website for posting federal job opportunities from across the government. USAJOBS connects federal agencies with job seekers and facilitates the transfer and merit-based promotions of current federal employees. Since the redesign of USAJOBS in 2016, OPM has assessed and enhanced the user experience with the website. For example, OPM added in...

DOD uses term and temporary appointments to hire civilian personnel for non-permanent positions that have uncertain funding or workload. (Temporary appointments are generally shorter than term appointments.) DOD recently extended the duration of its term and temporary appointments. Term appointments can now last up to 8 years (versus 4 years), and temporary appointments can last up to 3 years (ve...

A 2009 executive order called for actions to increase veteran employment in the federal government. But concerns have been raised about the retention and job satisfaction of newly hired veterans. We found that, compared to similar non-veterans, veterans: Left government jobs at a higher rate (6.7% vs. 5%) between FYs 2014-2018Resigned 1.6 times more oftenLeft in their first 5 years at higher rates...

Across the federal government, 45 programs provide servicemembers, veterans, spouses, and dependents with help establishing civilian careers, including education and employment services. The programs frequently provided similar services to similar populations. For example, 25 programs offered educational counseling. The programs reported efforts to coordinate activities, such as co-locating educa...

Forced labor is a global problem affecting millions of people, according to the United Nations. U.S. law prohibits imports produced with forced labor, including seafood. Customs and Border Protection, responsible for enforcement, established a forced labor division in 2018 to focus on identifying such imports. CBP uses information from external sources to help identify seafood imports produced w...

We looked at federal agencies’ efforts to hire and retain individuals with disabilities. Agencies hired about 143,600 persons with disabilities from 2011-2015—exceeding the federal target of 100,000. Agencies made an additional 79,600 hires in 2016 and 2017. About 39% of those with disabilities hired in 2011-2017 stayed less than a year, compared to about 43% of those without disabilities. A...

The Department of Labor has awarded grants to help states address the opioid crisis through training and employment services. State officials told us that job seekers who are in recovery may have additional challenges with finding employment, in part, due to employers’ concerns about potential criminal histories, relapse, and social stigma. To help meet the training and employment needs of thos...

Employment-related identity fraud occurs when people use a name or Social Security number (SSN) other than their own to get a job. This fraud makes it harder for IRS to collect taxes and harder for the Social Security Administration to manage benefits. Though the true scope of this fraud is unknown, we identified 1.3 million SSNs from 2016 that were associated with both signs of potential fraud (...

The Department of Labor’s Job Corps program helps low-income youth gain job skills at 118 centers across the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service operates 24 of the centers. In May 2019, both agencies proposed to return operation of the USDA centers to Labor. Labor proposed closing 9 of the 24 centers based on students' access to centers, and center cost and perform...