A federal call for IT - Despite uncertain economic times and moves to bring in new talent, the federal government is facing an IT brain drain.(IT personnel retirement crisis)

DESPITE THE SAGGING tech economy, the federal government is sandwiched between a pair of festering personnel problems: a decided shortfall of young incoming tech talent and a looming IT personnel retirement crisis.

Federal CIOs have been scrambling for months to get their arms around sweeping changes necessary to alter the face of federal IT hiring and recruitment, even amid corporate layoff announcements that dominated headlines this summer and recent days.

"No one believes that just because a lot of dot-coms have gone under that there will be a glut of IT workers. Many are simply returning to the companies they left for the startups," says Ira Hobbs, acting CIO at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in Washington.

Because those workers are not flocking to the federal government -- long considered the epitome of job stability -- recruitment and retention challenges continue to mount for federal leaders such as Hobbs, who is co-chair of the CIO Council's federal IT work force committee.

"We have a problem," Hobbs acknowledges. "And added to that problem are new services and technology that are dependent upon us having a competent IT work force to make them happen."

Contributing to the fed's IT work force shortage is the disparity between government and private sector pay rates, especially at the middle and senior levels. Compounding that problem are the drawn out and tedious federal hiring procedures.

The situation…