Federal Hiring Push, Contractor Cuts, Faster Retirements: OPM Chief Faces Congress

Hiring more federal workers, reducing reliance on contractors, launching the Tech Force, and speeding up retirements were among topics addressed by Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor during a House oversight hearing.

On hiring: Director Kupor told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government that he would be “perfectly happy” to increase federal staffers if the contracting workforce was cut, noting that contractors should be used for specific needs. 

“We have people who are contractors for five, 10, 15, 20 years. They are basically full-time employees in disguise, and they get paid anywhere from 25% to 100% higher than what a federal employee would,” said Director Kupor who called contractors a “shadow” workforce. 

Director Kupor said that OPM is requiring agencies to submit annual staffing plans for both full-time employees and contractors. 

“What we have encouraged [agencies] to do is to manage that as a single bucket of dollars, and to go through and figure out where there are opportunities to reduce contractor dollars — and, quite frankly, increase [federal employee] headcount,” he told lawmakers.

The director also stressed the need for merit-based hiring and a culture of accountability. 

Early Career Talent Network

The director said agencies are working to fill talent gaps in certain areas, following the departure of more than 300,000 federal workers in the first year of the Trump administration. 

Several days after the hearing, OPM announced an Early Career Talent Network– an online portal where interested parties can receive announcements about job postings and hiring events from federal recruiters. Its goal is to build a stronger talent pipeline for mission critical roles including human resources, finance, engineering, and procurement.  

Also discussed was the Tech Force, a new program to attract younger workers into government service for two-year assignments.

Some Democrats pressed the director on what message the two-year assignment sends, when it comes to the stability of federal careers. 

Director Kupor said the two-year assignments are in-line with what younger workers want. 

“I don’t think young people actually think about 40-year careers. I think they think about small increments,” he stated. 

Retirement Processing

On retirement modernization: Director Kupor said the new online retirement application is paying dividends already. 

The director said approximately 130,000 federal retirees have used the new digital process. Director Kupor noted that digital processing times are about 30 to 40 days, less than half as long as paper processing, which is averaging around 90 days. The goal is to get to 15 days for digital processing. 

Transition to HR 2.0

On OPM’s transition to a single human capital management system across the federal government, Director Kupor said the target is to have agencies transitioned into the system by September of 2027. 

The director said the single system will “reduce cost, increase efficiency, and stop wasting resources on redundant systems” and will have “tremendous” cost savings, although he said he couldn’t provide much detail on the figures given the complexity of the contracting process.