My dad was a career federal employee. He had a good career and has a pension.
I remember when I commuted to his office with him and his peers, sometimes they would talk about money. They would say something like “you won’t get rich but as long as you manage your money well you’ll always be okay.”
During employment and throughout retirement, it was a sweet gig. Not so sweet that you wouldn’t look at the private industry people with their big bonuses and stuff, but the sweetness was in the SECURITY.
WAS. Past tense.
Check out this post on HuffPo: Government Jobs No Longer So Secure.
If you want to get a sense of how insecure these jobs are today, set up a Google Alert for “layoff” and whatever word best describes your industry or profession (or even company). You might be surprised to see all of the layoffs in that area. I have done this since about October and I’m shocked to see the percentage of layoff announcements with so-called secure jobs.
A question then becomes: if we aren’t getting the security there, where do we get it? OR, what is the new draw of those gov’t jobs?
