Broadband administration jobs abound across US

The flood of funding coming down from the federal government to address the digital divide is spurring a range of broadband administrative hires in federal and state offices. At the federal level, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a Senate committee in February 2022 that the department expected to make at least 100 new hires for broadband alone and to have one staffer at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) assigned to each state. And at a recent senate hearing, Alan Davidson, head of NTIA – which is administering roughly $48 billion in broadband grant programs funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) – updated lawmakers on those hires, saying the administration was halfway toward its goal of hiring a broadband point person for every state. But pressed for how NTIA is prioritizing which states it's hiring for first, Davidson indicated the process was driven more by available talent. In addition to new hires at NTIA, states, territories and local governments are filling in their own broadband administration gaps as they prepare to tackle a range of BEAD and broadband-related responsibilities. And as governments fill their ranks with employees to administer and manage grant programs, there's also a new push from the White House to ensure the labor force exists to build the actual infrastructure.