The growing barrage of natural disasters and other responsibilities for the Federal Emergency Management Agency has resulted in high turnover and insufficient workforce development, officials told a congressional panel on Thursday, even as the agency has added thousands of workers in recent years.
FEMA has grown its overall workforce by around 5,000 employees over the last five years, a nearly 30% jump. That includes many temporary and non-career staff, who are generally activated only to respond to emergencies. Its permanent, full-time workforce, however, has remained steady over that time. As disasters become more severe and frequent, the workforce is increasingly strained and struggling to keep pace with its workload, former and oversight officials told a joint hearing within the House Homeland Security Committee. While FEMA has added more non-career staffers to its rolls, those employees are improperly trained and less likely to meet the growing demand for deployments, witnesses at the hearing said.
In the 1960s, the United States declared an average of 18 major disasters per year. The emergency response agency responded to 104 such disasters in 2020 and 58 last year. Its capacity to quickly deploy around the country and handle logistics has also led it to take on various other projects in recent administrations, such as helping with a surge of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the resettling of Afghan evacuees and the COVID-19 pandemic response. This has led to more turnover—and less experience—throughout the agency, lawmakers and witnesses said.
One of my best friends works for a government contractor that does computer modeling and satellite imagery analysis for FEMA and the FAA. His job revolves around determining what ports, roads,...
One of my best friends works for a government contractor that does computer modeling and satellite imagery analysis for FEMA and the FAA. His job revolves around determining what ports, roads, airport runways, etc. are still usable during disasters, so that emergency response teams can quickly get to the heart of disaster areas, and aid agencies can more efficiently get supplies to the worst affected areas. And he has been experiencing a similar dramatic increase in workload over the last few years too. It used to be that several times a year he would have to work weekends, and a couple times a year work 12 hour shifts 7 days a week for a short period during major disasters (e.g. Hurricanes). However, over the last few years that seems to have become more of the norm than the exception... which is why he is currently looking for a new job too. So it doesn't surprise me to hear this about FEMA, and IMO the situation is likely only going to continue to get worse as Climate Change continues to ramp up.
A friend of a friend pointed me towards job openings with FEMA, and if the job opening is representative there's a good reason they're having trouble keeping people. If you have a PhD or multiple...
A friend of a friend pointed me towards job openings with FEMA, and if the job opening is representative there's a good reason they're having trouble keeping people. If you have a PhD or multiple years of experience working with disasters they'll pay you less than 100k a year and promise you long stints of austere conditions in disaster areas where you'll be expected to work until you drop. If you don't have the exceptionally specialized experience, they'll pay 60k for the same. I applied, because underemployment makes people make hard decisions, but it's not really a compelling offer. Oh, and this is for a two year term, with no guarantee of continued employment.
I swear I'm not being snarky when I ask: Was there an "unlimited overtime in a disaster zone" clause in the enumerator job description? Because if not, FEMA should really be paying more.
I swear I'm not being snarky when I ask: Was there an "unlimited overtime in a disaster zone" clause in the enumerator job description? Because if not, FEMA should really be paying more.
I’ll be honest, I never ring doorbells (smart or otherwise) unless I’ve knocked a few times and received no response. Doorbells drove our pets crazy when I was a kid, in a way knocking didn’t.
I’ll be honest, I never ring doorbells (smart or otherwise) unless I’ve knocked a few times and received no response. Doorbells drove our pets crazy when I was a kid, in a way knocking didn’t.
One of my best friends works for a government contractor that does computer modeling and satellite imagery analysis for FEMA and the FAA. His job revolves around determining what ports, roads, airport runways, etc. are still usable during disasters, so that emergency response teams can quickly get to the heart of disaster areas, and aid agencies can more efficiently get supplies to the worst affected areas. And he has been experiencing a similar dramatic increase in workload over the last few years too. It used to be that several times a year he would have to work weekends, and a couple times a year work 12 hour shifts 7 days a week for a short period during major disasters (e.g. Hurricanes). However, over the last few years that seems to have become more of the norm than the exception... which is why he is currently looking for a new job too. So it doesn't surprise me to hear this about FEMA, and IMO the situation is likely only going to continue to get worse as Climate Change continues to ramp up.
A friend of a friend pointed me towards job openings with FEMA, and if the job opening is representative there's a good reason they're having trouble keeping people. If you have a PhD or multiple years of experience working with disasters they'll pay you less than 100k a year and promise you long stints of austere conditions in disaster areas where you'll be expected to work until you drop. If you don't have the exceptionally specialized experience, they'll pay 60k for the same. I applied, because underemployment makes people make hard decisions, but it's not really a compelling offer. Oh, and this is for a two year term, with no guarantee of continued employment.
I swear I'm not being snarky when I ask: Was there an "unlimited overtime in a disaster zone" clause in the enumerator job description? Because if not, FEMA should really be paying more.
I’ll be honest, I never ring doorbells (smart or otherwise) unless I’ve knocked a few times and received no response. Doorbells drove our pets crazy when I was a kid, in a way knocking didn’t.
That's delightful. I'm glad you had such a good experience with it.