Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Hiring can be expensive

Customs and Border Protection is hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents, 2,000 customs officers and 500 agents for the Office of Air and Marine Operations this year to bolster Trump's war against illegal immigration. The hiring will be done by Accenture, an international professional services corporation. It will cost us $297,000,000 over a five-year period; that's $39,600 per hire. The starting salary of an entry level Border Patrol agent is $40,511.

The agency has had trouble retaining agents. Between 2013 and 2016, an average of 523 agents were hired, while 904 left. Maybe that's because one of the criteria for hiring is no prior illicit drug activity by applicants. Approximately two out of three applicants to the border agency failed the traditional polygraph. That’s more than double the average rate of eight law enforcement agencies.

But that should change as the polygraph test will no longer be administered. 

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