About 70,000 job seekers at 54 federal agencies had some or all of their application data lost following a 4-day computer glitch at the Office of Personnel Management.

"USA Staffing apologizes for any inconvenience and will continue to address any concerns or questions applicants or agencies may have," said OPM spokeswoman Jennifer Dorsey in an Aug. 17 statement, referring to the hiring management system that caused the problem.

USA Staffing is a web-based system that, among other things, automatically accepts applications, analyzes applicant qualifications, and ranks job applicants. The system connects on the backside to USAjobs.gov and individual agencies such as the departments of Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs make use of it.

From Aug. 7-9, the system malfunctioned following quarterly maintenance, Dorsey said. USA Staffing officials decided the only way to repair the error was to take it offline, which they did--while notifying federal agencies, Dorsey added.

When the system was put back online at 4 a.m. on Aug. 11, information technology workers installed a clean backup from Aug. 7. Job applicants affected by the gap in system performance were notified on Aug. 12 to resubmit any information that was lost, Dorsey said.

"No individual security or data was compromised or breached at any point in time," she added.

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