The Transportation Security Administration saw a higher than usual drop in staff during the partial government shutdown and its aftermath last year when several thousand security checkpoint officers abandoned the agency, according to federal data obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Attrition numbers provided by TSA show 2,928 officers left the agency from December 2018 through March 2019, which was 9% higher than the same period a year earlier. The partial shutdown stretched from Dec. 22, 2018, through Jan. 25, 2019, and was the result of President Trump and lawmakers not reaching a funding agreement on border fence projects.
Despite the losses, TSA was able to hire thousands of new employees during the shutdown. TSA employed 47,824 officers on Dec. 8, 2018, two weeks before the start of the closure. As of Feb. 16, 2019, TSA reported 47,890 employees, indicating it had added 3,000 new officers to its ranks at about the time of the shutdown.
TSA was one of the hardest-hit government agencies during the shutdown because the majority of its employees were deemed essential and worked without pay. TSA officers were not furloughed because their work, which includes screening an average of 2 million airline passengers daily, was necessary since the private sector was unaffected by the shutdown and people kept traveling.
The TSA in 2019 was ranked in the bottom 10% of places to work in the federal government among 420 federal agencies and subagencies, making the shutdown more difficult on employees. Officers called to say they weren’t coming into work at significantly higher rates during the shutdown than in normal working conditions. On Jan. 20, 2019, TSA said 10% of its workforce stayed out, whereas only 3% did so on the same day a year earlier.
In an emailed statement, TSA acting Assistant Administrator James Gregory credited the “outpouring of support from the public,” a $500 holiday season bonus, parking and transit benefits, and partial pay for lower-ranking officers for the attrition rate not being higher than it was.
Officers at TSA do not receive the same level of compensation and workers’ rights as other Department of Homeland Security employees do, including Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last week, the House passed House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey’s and House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson’s bill, the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act, which would give TSA officers benefits that other DHS employees receive.
The agency’s union did not respond to a request for comment on attrition.
