Recruitment of baggage screeners to begin in spring

The Transportation Security Administration will not begin to hire federal baggage screeners for the nation's airports until this spring, a senior Transportation official said Wednesday. On Friday, the agency will release a training plan for security screeners, as required under the transportation security law that took effect in November. Shortly thereafter, Transportation officials will issue a request-for-proposals from private training firms, which will help provide baggage screener training, the official said at a Washington briefing. The TSA will begin recruiting in March or April, he said. "I would expect that the beginning of screener recruitment will be somewhere in the spring, in the March to April time frame, with the heavy season starting in May working up through the summer," he said. In early December, TSA said it would start recruiting screeners this month, but this information was simply incorrect, according to TSA spokesman Jim Mitchell. For now, U.S. citizens who would like to be considered for screening jobs can register with the Transportation Department by e-mail or phone. The department will send applications to all registered candidates this spring. To sign up, click here. TSA plans to recruit baggage screeners itself, although the agency has not ruled out using private firms to help with recruitment, said Mitchell. The Transportation department has a $3.3 million contract with Korn/Ferry International, an executive search firm, to recruit candidates to be federal security directors at airports. TSA has not made any decisions on what level of pay and benefits federal baggage screeners will receive, according to another senior Transportation official. The transportation security law exempts the agency from Title 5 of the U.S. Code, leaving it up to TSA chief John Magaw to decide whether employees should have civil service protections and what they should be paid.