On January 25th when President Trump signed a bill to temporarily reopen the U.S. government, the shutdown had already dragged on for more than a month. The shutdown has had many consequences including significantly undermining public confidence in the stability of government jobs, as The New York Times reported.

For government agencies at the federal, state and local level, this diminished confidence poses a new challenge when it comes to recruiting and hiring top-tier IT talent.

IT hiring within the public sector has been challenging – even before the shutdown. That is because the IT job landscape is dominated by tech behemoths like Amazon and Google. Government organizations have traditionally struggled to recruit talent away from highly lucrative roles at private enterprises — especially now, given Amazon's recent expansion into the DC area. Unable to compete on price, government organizations have touted job stability as a differentiator. But now the shutdown has called that into question.

Government organizations badly need qualified IT talent, particularly considering the unique challenges they face in terms of leveraging process automation to transform how agencies work.

One key automation challenge specific to government agencies is the acquisition cycle and deployment time required to put new hardware, software and other assets in place. Compared to private organizations, government entities can suffer from out date and inefficient processes, stricter and always-evolving rules and regulations, in addition to more levels of vetting internally in order to get new capabilities implemented. The consequence is a protracted deployment window that can make it challenging for government agencies to meet the organizations project objectives or mission.