An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Article Display

JB MDL releases local impact to AF civilian workforce restructuring

  • Published
  • By Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Public Affairs
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. --  Air Force officials recently announced several adjustments to the civilian workforce in response to the Secretary of Defense's 2010 memo directing civilian manpower costs stay within fiscal year 2010 levels.

JB MDL's restructuring will affect 144 Air Force civilian positions assigned to four organizations on the installation: the 87th Air Base Wing, the 305th Air Mobility Wing, the 21st Expeditionary Mobility Task Force and the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center. However, this does not directly translate into people.

Additionally, 85 of those positions are currently vacant. This will reduce the overall impact to the Air Force civilian positions identified for elimination.

"Our civilian workforce is essential to the execution of the Air Force mission," said Col. John Wood, JB MDL commander. "As a whole, the Air Force is making tough decisions to keep us within our fiscal constraints; however, we are committed to minimizing the impact of this restructure on our civilian workforce. We will exhaust every voluntary reduction opportunity before we initiate involuntary actions."

In 2010, the Air Force began a comprehensive strategic review of the entire civilian workforce to determine whether or not civilian authorizations were in the right places to meet mission priorities, according to an Armed Forces News Service article.

The strategic review revealed several imbalances. Some high-priority areas needed to grow, while some management and overhead functions needed streamlining. These imbalances led to a variety of initiatives focused on realigning scarce manpower resources with the most critical missions.

"We clearly understand the turbulence these and future reductions will cause in the workforce," General Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff of the Air Force said. "We are making every effort to use voluntary measures to achieve reductions whenever possible."

Beginning in May 2011, JB MDL implemented a series of Air Force directed hiring controls and voluntary separation programs designed to reduce overall manpower costs, but these hiring controls did not provide the results required to operate within the fiscal constraints.

The initiatives announced Nov. 2 is the next step toward the overall goal, but the Air Force still remains over fiscal year 2010 manpower levels and will continue to develop enterprise-wide solutions to achieve these goals with minimal mission impact, according to an Armed Forces News Service article.  The Air Force must still define an additional 4,500 civilian positions for reduction.


(Lt. Col. Cynthia Anderson contributed to this article.)