1600 people gone in one year, taking 10,000 years experience with them. Wrong curve to flatten...

Some cover Les Miserables songs during quarantine, I work on policy questions with FedScope employee data. To each his own. While there is much discussion of specific Trump COVID-19 failures, I had a different question. Living outside Bethesda, Maryland, near NIH and FDA, I heard tales of staff leaving due to the work environment under Trump. If true, experienced people were exiting well before COVID-19 hit, further complicating the failed federal response.

...critical agencies lost over 10,000 years of experience in the year before the pandemic. and examining these loses in detail is an important project moving forward to understand the situation we face today

So where did the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) stand in terms of staffing and experience before the pandemic?

Running the Numbers — FDA, NIH, CDC

Comparing snapshots of employee counts at FDA, NIH and CDC for June 2018 and June 2019, I found a definite drop over the year prior to the pandemic.

Change over Agencies June 2018 June 2019 Change FDA 18,463 18,115 -348 NIH 18,372 17,388 -984 CDC 10,663 10,377 -286 Total 47,498 45,880 -1618

So these agencies were 1600 people down in just one year, mostly from NIH. But a raw number does not capture lost experience, e.g. a 25-year versus a 5-year employee. FedScope provides years of service grouped in categories. Here is the difference between June 2018 and June 2019.

Change by service category Δ FDA Δ NIH Δ CDC Total Years Less than 1 year 51 253 177 481 241 1 - 2 years -478 -551 -454 -1,483 -2,225 3 - 4 years 80 95 270 445 1,558 5 - 9 years -713 -502 -372 -1,587 -11,109 10 - 14 years 719 100 182 1,001 12,012 15 - 19 years -37 -147 -56 -240 -4,080 20 - 24 years 48 68 108 224 4,928 25 - 29 years -93 -280 -204 -577 -15,579 30 - 34 years 88 -28 33 93 2,976 35 years or more -13 8 30 25 900 Total -348 -984 -286 -1,618 -10,379

There are expected shifts. Employees not going into the 3rd year for instance. Or FDA falls 713 in ‘5-9 years’ to gain 719 ‘10-14 years’ positions implying a large group aged up. However look at NIH and CDC at the ‘5-9 years’ range with significant loss not offset by a category upshift.

10,000 Years Health Experience Departs

The ‘25-29 years’ category is the most disheartening given today’s COVID-19 pandemic. Within a single year, these agencies lost 577 people in this category. Now, at the FDA and CDC, some of those 577 simply aged up, but look at NIH, were the was also a drop in the ‘30-34 years’ category. Employees reach retirement decisions at this service juncture, and some naturally would move on. However this documents the experience lost in one year, just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lastly, I used a range’s mid-point as an average to calculate the years represented by workers in a category. The graph at top shows the loss of experience by age category. The right-hand column above translates that into years experience lost.

Caveats

This data is a spreadsheet back of the envelope, mashing everyone together--from secretaries to scientists, entry level to senior executives. FedScope can get into the weeds, examining separations from service by category for instance, or comparing different fiscal years to examine trends. i just stopped at a simple comparison for now. Years of service is a rough guide to an employee’s value to an agency and varies by job category. Lastly, there are many vagaries in federal service and employee decisions to separate or retire are shaped by mundane personnel and financial reasons which are not captured in the data set.

Whatever the ultimate combination of reasons, these critical agencies lost over 10,000 years of experience in the year before the pandemic. and examining these loses in detail is an important project moving forward to understand the situation we face today.

Here is the spreadsheet I pulled from FedScope with the data I started with.