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Defense Infrastructure: DOD Needs to Provide Updated Labor Requirements to Help Guam Adequately Develop Its Labor Force for the Military Buildup

GAO-10-72 Published: Oct 14, 2009. Publicly Released: Oct 14, 2009.
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Highlights

The Department of Defense (DOD) plans to increase its military presence on Guam from about 15,000 in 2009 to more than 39,000 by 2020 at a cost of more than $13 billion. The growth will create temporary construction jobs and permanent civilian jobs with the military, with contractors, and in the Guam community. GAO was asked to examine the extent to which DOD and the government of Guam have (1) planned for temporary construction labor requirements and the means to meet the requirements for building military infrastructure to support the force in Guam and (2) identified permanent federal and non-federal civilian jobs and shared this information so that Guam can develop its workforce to better compete for job opportunities. To address these objectives, GAO obtained documents and interviewed officials from DOD, the Services, government of Guam offices, and the Guam higher educational community.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense To assist the government of Guam to properly train and prepare its future workforce to effectively compete for permanent federal civilian and DOD contractor support positions that will be available once the force has arrived in Guam, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics) to develop a process for projecting and sharing updated information describing federal civilian and DOD contractor support positions likely to be available--by specialties when feasible--and to routinely update this information until the buildup is complete.
Closed – Implemented
The DoD Civilian Personnel Management Service began working with the Department of Navy on this issue and took a number of actions, during fiscal year 2010, that met the intent of our recommendation to establish requirements and share the information to the Guam community. Some of those actions include the following. The United States Marine Corps hired two Executive Service members, one at Headquarters Marine Corps and the other at Marine Forces Pacific in Hawaii to manage their involvement and relocation to Guam. A Defense Policy Review Initiative Planning Group was established which has developed courses of actions for the number and types of Federal civilian and DOD contractor positions that Guam will require. DOD began preparation of a Human Resources Strategic Workforce plan which will include competency requirements and recruitment initiatives to meet Guam's civilian personnel workforce requirements. And finally, a Pacific Recruitment Campaign was developed in support of hiring in the Pacific Theater which will include a focus on outreach to the community and government of Guam.

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Topics

Civilian employeesCollege studentsConstruction (process)Construction workersEducationEmployee trainingEmployeesEmploymentEnvironmental impact statementsLabor forceMilitary facilitiesMilitary facility constructionRequirements definitionStrategic planningTemporary employmentTraining utilization