Message from Dept. Commissioner

[Deleted]

Just passing on the relevant part from Dept. Commissioner's message this morning...

"I also have good news to share about hiring. We have finally received the long-awaited new ALJ register, and we are busy interviewing candidates. We hope to hire up to 200 new ALJs this calendar year. This aggressive plan will fill many vacant ALJ offices across the country. We desperately need more judges, as both hearing requests and ALJ attrition are rising rapidly. This year a record number of ALJs (more than 100) will separate from the agency. We have a remarkable and talented ALJs corps, and we should not let factors that are beyond our control dampen our spirit."

[moopigsdad]

Also, similar discussion of this email in the thread entitled: "SSA Budgetary Issues and Its Effects???" There were some other important parts to the email not discussed here by robg.

[northbend]

Love it. My ship may yet come in. Hope this is encouraging to all on the register.

[cowboy]

This is a message that reveals more than what it says. Regardless of the doom and gloom you have read on other posts, this agency will always need ALJs and more and more. Even if the agency consolidates working space to save money, even if it centralizes certain business such as writing and case work up, more and more people are requesting hearings. I recently saw some numbers to support this. Last fiscal year, ODAR ALJs issued slightly less than 800,000 decisions. The Appeals Council (the reviewing body of ALJ decisions and final administrative step at SSA) reviewed about 170,000 decisions, and only 10% (about 17,000) of those cases were filed before the Federal District Court. Significantly modifying the ALJ corps in this agency would push a great majority of those case, perhaps all of them, before the District Court and overwhelm it. This position is essential. Even during the furlough, ALJs were retained employees over all others, even management.

I'm not going to reiterate the posts from the previous thread, but Emails like this one should show everyone that they will continue to hire ALJs despite the changes. I hope that gives you hope that you will get hired at some point. With persistence comes its rewards. This really is a great job. Best of luck to you all.