Homeland Security employees not satisfied with their jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Department employees mostly are an unhappy lot.

An internal survey of about 141,000 of the department's 208,000 employees found that only 58 percent were satisfied with their jobs, the same as results from a 2006 survey that measured job satisfaction across the government. The department ranked at the bottom in the 2006 poll, which was conducted by the Office of Personnel Management.

Most employees at the Department of Homeland Security like their work, believe it is important and cooperate with others to get the job done. That, no doubt, is a great comfort to the department's senior leaders.

But the leadership can take no pleasure in findings that show roughly half of employees are troubled by the department's pay and promotion practices.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today.

U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., pointed to a staff report out this week that nearly one-quarter of the senior leadership positions in the Department of Homeland Security tasked with protecting the country from terrorist threats are vacant. In addition to the critical leadership vacancies, Thompson noted that the report finds an unusually high number of critical national security jobs at the department filled by political appointees.