§10303 Cybersecurity recruitment and retention

Summary

Require the Secretary to create special jobs in the Bureau of Global Talent Management just for finding and keeping people with skills in cybersecurity, engineering, data science, app development, artificial intelligence, critical and emerging technology, and technology and digital policy. Their job is to fill those tech roles, recruit from schools and industry, work with the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. Digital Service on best hiring practices, and train supervisors on how to use hiring authorities. The Secretary must send a plan to the appropriate congressional committees within 180 days after December 23, 2022. Congress authorized $750,000 for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027 to do this. Within 1 year after December 23, 2022, and then once a year for the next 5 years, the Secretary must report to the appropriate congressional committees with details on hiring tools the Department can use, which ones were used in the prior 5 years, counts of hires by job and pay level, placements by bureau, dropout rates in hiring and why, how many candidates were interviewed by experts, and recommendations (including how to cut dropout rates by 5 percent each year, any new hiring tools needed, using public trust hires until security clearances arrive, and supervisor training). The Secretary must also add computer programming languages to the Recruitment Language Program, pay language incentives, and each year for 5 years report which languages are included, the pay rate, and how many people receive the benefit.