USAID turns to workarounds to deal with staff shortage: OIG report

The U.S. Agency for International Development faces chronic challenges related to strategic workforce planning — which were exacerbated by a hiring freeze during former President Donald Trump’s administration and by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

In a report published last month, the USAID watchdog found that the agency failed to meet congressionally funded staffing levels in the 2020 fiscal year, hiring just over half of the civil and foreign service staff members it had planned. The effort to increase staff numbers came in the wake of a hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration, which caused staffing levels to decline and prompted U.S. lawmakers to step in with directives for a hiring plan and timeline to meet the staffing levels they had funded.

The agency planned to hire a combined 571 civil and foreign service staff members by the end of fiscal 2020 but only hired 310, or 54% of its target workforce, according to the report.

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