The lists released are the second annual effort by agencies to take inventory of their commercial jobs, which are jobs that potentially could be performed by contractors. Job lists from the largest federal departments have yet to be released. The annual lists are required under the 1998 Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act. The law does not require that agencies open commercial jobs to competition. In all, the 26 agencies whose job lists have been released have 258,000 positions, of which 75 percent, or 194,719, are listed as commercial.
Officials attribute the drop to more thorough reviews.
We did a survey in more detail this year, said Craig Conlin of the human-resources office at NASA, which reported 3,300 fewer commercial jobs this year than last year. We found more people doing contract oversight and some other governmental type work. Agencies are realizing the importance of the federal work force and . . . So they re more reluctant this time to report commercial jobs, he said. Although the three agencies represent a small share of the federal work force, contractors are upset by the decrease in commercial jobs reported.