Federal Government Policy and Business

Where the jobs aren’t: Federal agencies have little need for these skills

The Washington Post: Uncle Sam doesn’t want you.

Not if your specialty is repairing bowling equipment or domestic appliances. Nor patternmaking or negative engraving or any of some three dozen other occupations.

The Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency, last week proposed to end the separate job “classifications” for occupations in which the government now employs fewer than 25 people.

The classification system is a standard way of defining jobs across different agencies and in different places for purposes including setting the minimum and maximum pay ranges. In its latest review of what it calls “occupational series” OPM identified those that have about 25 or fewer actual jobs governmentwide, “and the work covered can be classified to other existing occupational series,” OPM said in a memo to agencies.

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