Government employees won 61 percent of job competitions with the private sector last year, a sharp drop from 91 percent the year before, according to a report to be released this week. The drop was due to Federal Aviation Administration employees’ loss of a job competition to Lockheed Martin in February 2005, said Robert Burton, acting administrator of federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget. FAA’s outsourcing of 2,500 positions for flight service specialists, who provide pilots with flight plans and weather information, followed the government’s largest public-private job competition to date. Job transfers began in October, following an unsuccessful court challenge by an employees’ union and appeals from Congress to wait until it decided whether to halt the transfer. The 2005 totals are “a little skewed” by the FAA decision, so the new report will include a three-year average of job competitions won by government and industry, Burton said.
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