When the U.S. government said it was freezing pay for all non-military workers, it sounded like bad news for federal hiring managers trying to fill thousands of IT jobs. And it surely doesn't make their task easier.
But it turns out that relatively low pay isn't a hallmark of government tech work. In fact, the opposite is true. When we started poking around job listings on the government's own hiring site, we noticed that salary ranges for high-level positions, like these in Seattle, were similar to private sector jobs we'd previously examined with similar descriptions.
Then we found that earlier this year, the IT trade publication Information Week had surveyed more than 20,000 tech pros and found that government workers -- both managers and staffers -- earned 10% more than their private-sector counterparts.
So even with the pay freeze, hiring managers should be able to offer salaries that are more than competitive as they try to replace a coming wave of civilian and military IT retirees. (InformationWeek)
Related: Seattle tech workers saw salary gains in 2009
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