Carley Welch
A year after the Pentagon launched a new initiative to dramatically boost its cyber workforce, it finds itself making progress but grappling to fill thousands of jobs, to accurately assess the cyber talent it has and to free up its people to learn more when the opportunity is available.
“We’re at a 28,000 shortage, which is better than we were last year, but that’s still a 28,000 shortage, so I have to get after how do we create and generate that next generation of talent,” Mark Gorak, principal director for resources and analysis for the DoD Chief Information Officer, told Breaking Defense on the sidelines of TechNet Augusta last week.
Gorak said the Pentagon has hired 12,000 people as part of the Cyber Workforce Strategy Implementation Plan, but has seen a turnover of 10,000 people in the overall staff in the same time, meaning there’s been a net positive hire of 2,000 people. For context, there are approximately 225,000 total personnel that are part of the cyber workforce, according to Gorak’s office, split between 75,000 federal civilians, 75,000 military personnel and 75,000 contractors. The DoD counts 72 positions as roles in the cyber workforce.
Filling the vacancies in the cyber workforce is one problem, Gorak said, but filling them with qualified people is a whole other issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment