Don't hold your breath that those jobs will be open to us, though.  The
Forest Service has been talking about all of these upcoming retirees
with a lot of concern.  The word on the street is that they plan to
replace all of these professionals with "student trainees."  Hiring on
students at a lower GS-level, giving them some experience, and
guaranteeing them work when they complete their degrees.  Wonderful
opportunity for the students, but really irksome to those seasonal
archaeological technicians who already have advanced degrees,
supervisory experience, and years invested as seasonal employees doing
fieldwork, labwork, and writing reports that can't get permanent
employment!
All this talk about how low the standards are for getting hired as a
professional archaeologist with a federal agency.  Frankly, regardless
of the standards and your personal qualifications, it is darned
difficult to obtain permanent status if you are not a student or a
veteran with a 10-point hiring preference (speaking as one who has been
trying for a number of years).  In any event, federal agencies are
talking a lot about contracting out the work rather than hiring on
permanent staff.  It is best not to overstate the opportunities for
employment out there in the federal realm.  Although some of us
continue to look!

Andrea Marroquin

On Sep 10, 2004, at 10:39 AM, Michael Pfeiffer wrote:

> Of those statistics that Will generated, it shows that just over half
> of
> the professional archaeologists in the forest service are over 50 years
> old.  The FS is facing loosing a majority of its professionals in the
> next
> 5-10 years due to retirement.
>