Here is an article I found online. This is fact and trustworthy! According to this FAA is still hiring currently and has no plans of a freeze!
FAA Faces Rising Trainee Numbers in Controller Ranks
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/aw022309p3.xml&headline=FAA%20Faces%20Rising%20Trainee%20Numbers%20in%20Controller%20Ranks&channel=awst
Feb 22, 2009
By Adrian Schofield
The FAA is hiring thousands of air traffic controllers to stay ahead of a spike in retirements, but this is raising new concerns about an increasingly inexperienced workforce. Trainees now comprise a quarter of the U.S. controller staff - up to half at some facilities - and this ratio is set to rise further.
Government watchdog agencies admit the FAA has proved skeptics wrong by mounting a successful hiring campaign. However, in solving one problem the FAA has created another. Veteran controllers are being replaced by recruits who need further on-the-job training before becoming fully certified. "We do have concerns - not over the total size of the workforce, but over the skill level and training level" of the new controllers, says U.S. Transportation Dept. Inspector General Calvin Scovel.
Although the FAA is confident the rising number of trainees is not causing safety problems, this issue will ensure the controller workforce remains a political football for years to come.
The genesis of the staffing problem is the national controller strike of 1981, during which then-President Ronald Reagan locked out the strikers, then fired them. A new class of controllers was hired and trained, but those workers are now hitting retirement age at around the same time. After much prodding by the controllers' union and Congress, the FAA recognized the approaching crisis and began a hiring drive to replenish its ranks.
The agency exceeded its hiring target for Fiscal 2008 and is on track to do the same for Fiscal 2009, according to the FAA's acting assistant administrator for policy, Nancy LoBue. The agency may have passed the peak of the retirement bubble, as the attrition rate is starting to level out, LoBue says. Former acting Administrator Robert Sturgell believes that while there are some facilities that must be watched carefully, the overall staffing situation is adequate.
Scovel says the FAA has "done what I can only say is a remarkable job in hiring replacements for controllers who have decided to leave." Almost 5,000 controllers - more than a third of the total - have left since 2005, but the FAA "has managed to hire up" and now has 270 controllers more than it had in 2004, Scovel notes.
The bad news, however, is the loss of experience in the workforce. Overall, controllers still in trainee status represent nearly 26% of the total, a significant increase from the 15% share in 2004, Scovel says. Numbers vary according to facility: there are no trainees at the Pittsburgh tower, but 47% of controllers at the Orlando tower are still in training. Scovel highlights the Southern California terminal radar approach control, where there will be almost 100 trainee controllers this year, about 40% of the total.
Training and certifying controllers will continue to be a challenge for the agency, Scovel points out. Through 2017, the FAA will have hired about 17,000 new controllers, and it currently takes them nearly three years to become fully certified.
Patrick Forrey, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. (Natca), says the crucial point is not how many controllers are being hired, but "how qualified they are and how successful they will be in training." The ATC system is being "clogged with trainees," and the ratio of new recruits will continue to grow, Forrey says.
Natca and the FAA disagree over how many of the new recruits have been fully certified, but it is clear that it is a relatively small proportion of the total hired. Forrey says the problem is not the quality of the recruits. "We want them to be put in a situation where they have the best opportunity to succeed, and that's not being done," he says. Trainees are increasingly being placed in the largest and busiest facilities that aren't properly equipped for training.
The union says an unpopular contract imposed on controllers in 2006 was a major cause of the retirement spike. The contract removed opportunities for veterans to increase their pay, giving them less incentive to stay on. If the FAA and controllers return to the table to renegotiate the contract, it would stem future losses, Forrey says. House lawmakers have introduced an FAA reauthorization bill that would reopen the Natca contract, but Republicans claim this would cost too much.
Staffing challenges are also arising in other areas. The Government Accountability Office does not believe the FAA has enough skilled technical workers to roll out crucial NextGen modernization programs. The GAO estimates the agency will require 350 additional technical staff, systems engineers and contract management experts over the next two years to manage NextGen implementation. LoBue admits that "we're concerned about staff with technical skills . . . . We see a shortage coming, as do all technical-oriented industries."
