Understanding Factors Related to Attrition of Department of Defense Civilian Employees Using Non-Parametric Survival Methods

Abstract

Government success depends on employees with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) qualifications to support critical roles within the Department of Defense (DoD), so it is important to understand attrition factors related to the DoD STEM workforce and how these factors might differ from DoD employees in non-STEM occupations. Civilian personnel data from Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), linked by anonymous employee identification numbers, was analyzed to study attrition of DoD STEM civilians. To limit the scope of the study, we based the analysis only on a cross-section of civilians employed by Department of the Army (DA) in the first quarter of 2009. Our findings suggest that Virginia STEM employees, especially in the first few years after appointment, have higher attrition rates than the Texas STEM employees. Implications of these results could suggest policy changes such as increases in locality pay for DoD STEM positions in Virginia are needed to incentivize the retention of STEM employees in a competitive market.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1073645

Entities

People

  • Brittany Morgan

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Age Distribution
  • Attrition
  • Civilian Personnel
  • Data Centers
  • Department Of Defense
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • Institutional Review Board
  • Management Personnel
  • Manpower
  • National Governments
  • Personnel Management
  • Rehabilitation
  • Security Personnel
  • Social Sciences
  • United States
  • United States Government

Readers

  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • STEM Education