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# FDA Needs Better Workforce Planning: GAO
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/fda-needs-better-workforce-planning-gao/
- Published: 2022-01-14T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T17:28:40.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5150934

A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) [report](https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104791.pdf?ref=fdaweb.com) finds that FDA needs better planning for its recruitment and retention of medical product staff. The GAO examination was required as part of the 2016 21st Century Cures Act that provided additional flexibilities regarding FDA’s recruitment and retention of medical product staff.

The report notes that FDA used the Cures Act flexibility to “expedite hiring and to offer higher salaries than the agency could under traditional federal hiring authorities.” GAO says the agency does follow some leading practices for effective workforce planning for medical product staff, such as the product centers conducting annual workforce planning to determine the skills they need and develop strategies to address identified gaps. “However, FDA does not have an agency-wide strategic workforce plan to coordinate human capital efforts across the medical product centers, nor does it have performance measures in place to evaluate the effectiveness of its human capital strategies, as called for by leading practices of effective workforce planning.” the report found.

GAO recommends that FDA (**1**) develop and implement an agency-wide strategic workforce plan with performance measures to ensure it can evaluate the effectiveness of its human capital efforts and (**2**) establish an ongoing process to update this plan.