Luring Young IT Workers

The Defense Department is creating a new manual to help federal agencies attract the next generation of technology workers, FederalNewsRadio.com reports.

Joyce France, Defense's director of Chief Information Officer Management Services, says the pending federal retirement wave will have a severe impact on the Defense IT workforce, with about 33 percent of the 78,000 IT professionals in the military eligible to retire over the next five to six years. As a result, Defense is working to attract Generation Y workers by showing them the types of jobs Defense offers, in part by holding job fairs and offering mentoring opportunities.

The manual, which will be finished in mid-March, will include research and statistics on the federal government and Defense's IT workforce, and the types of things the younger generation is looking for in a job, the article states.

The retirement wave among the IT workforce is not limited to Defense, however. The

Partnership for Public Service estimates federal agencies will need to hire more than 11,500 IT workers between 2010 and 2012.

Has your agency begun developing a manual on how best to attract the younger generation of IT workers? What types of incentives will be crucial to attracting this younger, tech-savvy group to the federal workforce?