FDA is launching a recruitment blitz to fill more than 1,300 staff positions following an Office of Personnel Management decision to give the agency direct-hire authority, which allows it to bypass certain Department of Health and Human Services rating and ranking procedures when assessing applicants.

With direct-hire authority, FDA can bring qualified candidates on board within as little as three weeks, the agency said in announcing the initiative on April 30.

Office of New Drugs Director John Jenkins complained after House Appropriations hearings in February that it could take six months to add a new staffer because of the "dysfunctional" personnel system (¹ Also see "FDA’s “Dysfunctional” Hiring System May Be Good For Safety Databases" - Pink Sheet, 17 March, 2008., p. 10).

By Sept. 30, FDA must fill 770 positions created in fiscal 2008 by the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 and in the agency's food protection and import safety plans, as well as 547 vacancies from previous years.

The 1,317 positions are nearly triple the number of staff hired from 2005 to 2007, and include 500 funded by user fees, the agency says.

The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research will account for 444 of the new jobs and 219 vacancies. The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition will gain 91 posts and fill 13 vacancies. The Office of Regulatory Affairs will fill more open posts, 134, than gain new positions, 111.

A faster hiring process is only the first step in improving FDA's ability to implement new safety authorities and improve its oversight of food and drug safety. Agency personnel needs primarily are scientific. Jenkins noted there are a limited number of qualified candidates and it can take one to three years to train a reviewer or project manager.

OPM grants direct-hire authority when agencies face critical hiring needs or during severe shortages of candidates. FDA is seeking medical and consumer safety officers, chemists, nurses, biologists, microbiologists, health/regulatory/general health scientists, statisticians, epidemiologists, pharmacologists, pharmacists and veterinary medical officers to fill positions throughout the agency at headquarters and in regional and district offices.

- Cathy Dombrowski (c.dombrowski@elsevier.com)

FDA Sheds Cumbersome Hiring Process To Beef Up Scientific Capabilities

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