

“Under the injunction, the Surgeon General, the White House Press Secretary, and many other senior presidential aides risk contempt if their public statements on matters of policy cross the ill-defined lines drawn by the Fifth Circuit,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the high court filing.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.The Justice Department claims allowing the lower court ruling to stay in effect would “impose grave and irreparable harms on the government and the public.” It asked the Supreme Court to immediately block the 5th Circuit’s injunction placed on the administration while it files a formal petition for the justices to take up the case. “I think it’s an important degree,” she said. Positions related to national security or law enforcement are excepted from that requirement, she said.Īhuja was also in Athens at week’s end to speak at the ceremonies for graduates of the UGA School of Public and International Affairs in Athens. “It doesn’t matter where you get your skills, it matters that you can show that you have those skills,” she said. That means someone with an unrelated criminal record will not be screened out early. In most of the economy, men are paid more on average than women, but the gap is smaller in the government, Ahuja said: a 5.6% spread, instead of 16%Ī recent law also requires federal hiring managers to postpone background checks on applicants until the managers are ready to make a conditional offer. Georgia has more than 75,000 federal employees, about one-third of them in metro Atlanta.īecause the federal government was willing to hire and promote Black workers when much of the private sector - especially in the South - resisted, the government has been a major force in building a Black middle class. Among the most common postings were for the Internal Revenue Service, the Centers for Disease Control, Veteran’s Health Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration. Last year, USA Jobs listed nearly 10,000 open positions for metro Atlanta including jobs with 146 agencies. The Office of Personnel Management handles USA Jobs, the online site that currently lists about 1,000 jobs in metro Atlanta, as well as 500 that could be done remotely from Atlanta. “There is compelling work to do.” Especially in demand is expertise in cybersecurity and software. “We also think we can win on mission,” she said. Moreover, those with student loan debts who work for the federal government for a decade can have their loans forgiven, Ahuja said. Government can offer generous benefits - health and retirement, especially - and, depending on the job, there can be flexibility in hours and the ability to work remotely. But there are other ways we can be competitive.” In general, people can make more money in the private sector for jobs that require training in science, technical, engineering and math, she said.

“And I am sort of the chief recruiter for the federal government.”

Atlanta is a rich target for hiring young workers because of the area’s many schools, she said. “We have historically in government had a challenge in recruiting tech talent,” Ahuja said. Techies are in special demand: Fewer than 4% of federal workers in technology jobs are younger than 30. Recruiting at a time of near record low unemployment has been fraught for many employers. “We want institutional knowledge, but we need early career talent,” she said.
