Oak Ridge National Laboratory To Add Jobs in 2011

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory, near Knoxville, Tennesse, has added 500 new employees in 2010, and the Director Thom Mason claims to The Knoxville News Sentinel that this trend may continue into 2011.

The lab is having its higest hiring rate since the 1970s’ Arab oil embargo.  Roughly half of the hires were replacing departing employees, while the other half were new growth, pushing the lab up to just shy of 5,000 employees.  The growth has been, in part, stimulated by new energy technology and national security programs.  Mason says that the new hirings are not related to the $450 million stimulus fund that the lab recently received.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is one the Department of Energy‘s largest science and energy laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle.  Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s scientists and engineers create technological solutions and scientific knowledge by conducting basic and applied research and development.  The facility focuses on building the nation’s expertise in the key areas of clean, abundant energy, restoration and protection of the environment, and national security.  Oak Ridge National Laboratory receives over 30,000 visitors each year, in addtion to 10,000 precollege students, and annually hosts some 3,000 guest researchers.  The facility receives over $1.4 billion annually in funding from the Department of Energy, and a few other federal and private customers.