U.S. Cyber Command’s (CYBERCOM) Air Force component will likely add between 1,200 and 1,500 largely civilian cyber jobs to help the service and the combatant command bolster their cyber defense efforts, according to the Air Force’s space chief.
The new figures announced by Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) chief Gen. William Shelton are a clarification from last January when he said the service could add “well over” 1,000 cyber jobs (Defense Daily, Jan. 18). Shelton said Tuesday at a Peter Huessy congressional breakfast series event on Capitol Hill that Air Force demand for these cyber jobs would be about 1,500.
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| Air Force Space Command chief Gen. William Shelton. Photo: Air Force. |
“I’m being a little fuzzy on the numbers because the numbers are being finalized,” Shelton said. “When I said about 1,000, we really thought the number was about 1,200. When I say 1,500, we’re not sure exactly where it’s going to settle, but it’s gone up from where we thought it was originally going to be.”
Shelton in January said the hires would be about 70 or 80 percent civilian. Shelton said, despite sequestration related furloughs for Defense Department civilians last that began last week, these cyber jobs would be filled because the service knows how important they are. The Air Force chief scientist said last week that her office has been disproportionally impacted by sequestration because the service’s researchers are disproportionally civilian (Defense Daily, July 12).
“We’re going to carve those people out somewhere from within the Air Force structure and we’ll fund those billets because this is a high priority within the department.”
Shelton also said offensive cyber operations is the focus of Cyber Command standing up these national and combatant command cyber squads. Shelton, as head of Space Command, has authority over the 24th Air Force, which is the operational warfighting organization that establishes, operates, maintains and defends Air Force networks.