FDA Workforce Problems Include Long Hiring Cycle, Large Temporary Staff

A report on the state of FDA’s workforce finds that eight of 10 medical officers are temporary or term appointed and that it takes about six months to bring an employee onboard. FDA’s new Office of Human Resources is seeking to reduce the time to hire.

FDA staffers are overworked and underpaid, and the agency faces problems with employee retention and a slow hiring process that discourages quality prospects, a recent report shows.

According to the Partnership for Public Service’s “The State of the FDA Workforce” report, eight of 10 medical officers at the agency are temporary employees or are term appointed; the...

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