The IRS Has Not Fully Met the Department of the
Treasury’s Veteran Hiring Goal
Why did we do this audit?Since November 2009, federal Executive Branch agencies have been required to participate in a veterans employment initiative, including developing agency specific operational plans for promoting employment opportunities for veterans as well as establishing a veterans employment program office. During our review in May 2025, the Office of Personnel Management issued a Merit Hiring Plan to simplify federal hiring and strengthen recruitment for technical, skills-based criteria. The plan identified veterans, early-career talent, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics professionals as key focus areas. It will also own governmentwide veteran recruiting roadmap to help agencies identify high-demand occupations and better align veterans’ skills with workforce needs. However, the effectiveness of these initiatives has not yet been determined given limited federal hiring. What did we find?The IRS did not meet the Department of the Treasury’s longstanding 14 percent veteran hiring goal established in FY 2013. From FYs 2020 through 2024, the IRS hired 70,879 employees, of whom 5,673 (8 percent) were veterans. Annual veteran hiring rates during the time period ranged from 7 to 11 percent. In its FY 2024 Strategic Recruitment Plan, IRS management acknowledged that it had not met the Treasury Department’s veteran hiring goal and described ongoing efforts to improve performance, including tracking and analyzing veteran hiring and workforce data and producing annual hiring summaries and trend analyses by IRS function. We found that 74 percent of IRS functions met or exceeded the 14 percent veteran hiring goal during FYs 2020 through 2024. However, several functions – primarily those with entry-level, lower-paying, and seasonal positions – had substantially lower veteran hiring rates. Because these functions account for a significant share of IRS hiring, they lowered the agency’s overall veteran hiring percentage. Human Capital Office management stated that several factors may contribute to missing veteran hiring goals, including applicants’ qualifications, the hiring authority used, and incomplete identification of veterans in hiring data. Applicants may either self-identify as veterans or be hired under a veterans hiring authority. Veterans who do neither are not reflected as veterans in the data, resulting in an undercount.
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