IRS Commissioner Says Aging Workforce 'Lost an Entire Generation' to Hiring Freeze

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Chuck Rettig has called on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee to provide multi-year funds for modernizing both the agency's information technology system and its workforce, reports the Federal News Network . Hiring future-generation employees is one of the agency's top priorities, as about 45 percent of its workforce will be eligible to retire within the next two years and less than 3 percent is 30 or younger. Rettig also lamented that a hiring freeze extending from 2011 through 2018 locked out "an entire generation of IRS employees." Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) cited a "long trend of not providing adequate resources" to the IRS, noting that has had an impact on the workforce's ability to carry out their mission.