FEMA has about 6,500 full-time staff. Eighty-five percent of them are currently deployed to disasters (and that is not their primary job). So they are looking to increase their staff by 31 percent. Here's the good and the bad with that idea.
Good:
A great opportunity for people to get into the emergency management field, and add to their cadre of disaster reservists, which was decimated by policy changes back in the Craig Fugate era.
Bad:
It will be difficult to find competent people to hire. We are currently at a 17-year low in the unemployment rate. Someone who worked on a factory floor is not going to be able to come in and do the work of an engineer or a historical preservationist.
What this will lead to is, "When you need someone bad, many times that is what you get, bad people." They might not be competent, they could have social skill issues, anger management (you deal with many angry people already in a disaster) or be criminally inclined. The standards for who you hire can go down — never a good thing to have happen.
Let's watch and see what happens in 12-18 months ...
