The Wall Street Journal’s Sara Murray reports that if you need a job you should think about becoming a civil servant…maybe. While the private sector is still in recession/layoff mode, the federal government needs to hire 241,000 employees over the next three years (this isn’t because Barack Obama is expanding the size of government, but baby boomer retirements). But the government’s supply of jobs and application process is not meeting the demands of a heavily unemployed or under-employed labor force:

But a dearth of jobs isn’t the government’s problem. It’s finding a quick and fair way to wade through the resumes. In the past six months, each job posting (which may actually be multiple jobs, such as the same job in various locations) on USAJobs drew about 170 applications — up from about 25 in 2007.

Murray’s piece focuses on how the federal government can more swiftly go through the application and hiring process. That’s an important issue, but a more significant and controversial subject is if the federal government should expands its workforce. Roads need to be repaired, consumer products need to be inspected, bodies of water and parks need to be cleaned up.  Yet there doesn’t seem much appetite for more of the federal budget to go toward direct job creation. Even the debate over extending the stimulus bill to help the unemployed is about the unemployed continuing to collect benefits and get health care — not about giving people jobs.

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