Civilian Cyber Workers in the U.S. Department of Defense: Demographics, Retention, and Responsiveness to Training Opportunities
Abstract
In the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress recognized the need to recruit and retain a civilian workforce with specific expertise in cybersecurity and granted the Secretary of Defense the authority to create the Cyber Excepted Service (CES) personnel system. This personnel system provides the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) greater flexibility in hiring and in adjusting compensation to remain competitive in the labor market for civilian cyber talent. To provide analytic support in making use of this greater flexibility for the CES workforce, the DoD Chief Information Officer asked the RAND Corporations National Defense Research Institute to conduct a study of labor demand, labor supply, retention, and the use of training and education for the CES workforce. The results on labor demand and labor supply are summarized in two previous RAND reports (Knapp, Beaghley, Schwindt, et al., 2021a; Knapp, Beaghley, Smith, et al., 2021b). In this report, we provide summary statistics on DoD civilian cyber retention, promotion, and pay in addition to estimates of the effect of various options for training programs on CES retention using RANDs dynamic retention model (DRM) capability.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2022
- Accession Number
- AD1174402
Entities
People
- Avery Calkins
- Beth J. Asch
- Daniel Schwam
- Michael G. Mattock
Organizations
- RAND Corporation