There has been no big retirement spike among federal employees at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office during the COVID-19 pandemic but officials who spoke at a virtual hearing this week fear that could change.
The assessment was offered by William “Ike” White, acting assistant secretary for environmental management, in response to a question from Joyce Connery, chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), during a board hearing Tuesday on cleanup of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
There has been talk of a “silver tsunami” of retirements among aging federal workers whom COVID “nudged … out the door” Connery said. She asked White whether he had spotted such a trend at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM).
Without citing numbers, both White and Michael Budney, the top EM manager at Savannah River, said attrition has not worsened since the virus took root in the United States during early 2020.
“Our attrition rates have maybe been a little lower than they might otherwise have been,” White said. Based on “my intuition and no real data,” White believes many contemplated retirement in the past couple of years but put off the decision due to “the uncertainty of operating in a pandemic environment.”
It is possible retirements could accelerate as EM moves out of the pandemic and more people return on-site rather than telecommuting. “It’s something we are watching very, very carefully,” White said, given that so much of the cleanup branch’s workforce is reaching retirement age.
“My intuition is similar to yours,” Connery said.
During fiscal 2022, which starts Oct. 1, the Biden administration has requested the equivalent of 1,290 full-time staff positions for EM, an increase of 15 over fiscal 2021 and up more than 100 from fiscal 2020.
About 27% of current federal employees are eligible for retirement, a DOE spokesperson said in a Friday email. Within three years, 40% will be eligible for retirement, and 48% will be eligible for retirement within five years, the spokesperson added.
During the session, White and other DOE officials said the agency is gradually scaling back up in-person training and emergency exercises that were often suspended since the pandemic began.
