Pentagon trying to close the guardsmen employer data gap.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: National Guard

As demands on the National Guard and reserves grow, the Defense Department and private sector are hungry for better data to assess the economic impact of deployments, officials said.

"If the current tempo continues ... we may well begin to see stress to the business community," said Jeffrey Crowe, chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We have no good numbers of the number of companies affected, of sole proprietorships closed or the number of overtime hours of coworkers."

The Defense Department also recognized that its rough estimates of the civilian jobs from which soldiers are pulled are not adequate to meet the Pentagon's internal needs, officials said. In response, the Pentagon this year formed the civilian employment information program. Some of the overall results from data collected may be made public and used to fill the gaps in knowledge lamented by the Chamber of Commerce.

The program directs Guard and Reserve members to register information about their civilian employer and job skills on special websites, run by the defense manpower data center (DMDC), in order for the department to meet legally defined requirements.

The Pentagon is required to give consideration to civilian employees who hold jobs deemed necessary to national interest when considering members for recall. This requirement is designed to ensure that members with critical civilian skills, such as medical and safety professionals, are not called up in numbers beyond those needed.

Additionally, the Pentagon needs the information to inform employers of their rights and responsibilities under the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act.

"The...