As the economy zooms along, employers are having a harder time recruiting and keeping employees.

Two local police departments have discovered they are not immune to the attrition syndrome.

The Southern Pines department has had a 17 percent turnover rate this year, while Aberdeen’s turnover rate has been about 21 percent.

Officers leave for a variety of reasons. Some want to be closer to family and friends in different communities. Some find the challenge of being a police officer too much to bear and enter a different profession. Some find better pay working for a different department or in the private sector.

Southern Pines Chief Gerald Galloway and Jane Dreher, the town’s human resources director, work together to recruit officers for the department. Their biggest weapon in the war to find officers to fight the war on crime is advertising, they say. They don’t just aim to find officers to fill squad cars; they look for the right kind of officer, one who can meet the unique demands that the citizens of Southern Pines will place on him or her, Dreher says.

"The last question we ask (during an interview) is ‘What kind of salary are you looking for?’" Dreher says. "And we try to comply if it is in any way in line with their experience and training." If they can pay an officer what he or she asks for, they can eliminate salary as a motivation for leaving the force, Dreher says.

When an officer joins the Southern Pines Police Department, he or she spends 13 weeks in a field-training program, learning the streets, meeting the citizenry and mastering the department’s unique rules and procedures. When young officers leave, the town loses out on the resources and skills the officer developed during that training.

As trainees, prospective officers make between $19,940 and $36,274, depending on experience, education and special qualities.

Once they complete the training program, Level One police officers make between $22,012 and $40,043. Three more positions, Level Two police officer, master officer/community services officer and lieutenant pay, $24,295 to $44.197, $25,524 to $46,433 and $26,819 to $48788, respectively.

"In law enforcement, we experience a regular turnover rate," Galloway says. "The challenge of being a law officer is something we cannot change."

Down the road, Aberdeen, with 19 full-time officers, pays beginning officers $22,589 to 33,379, depending on education and experience. The Aberdeen police have had their fair share of attrition this year.

During the past year, four officers have quit the force, all with less than three years experience.

In both towns, the council or board sets the pay scales for all employees, including law officers.

While salary plays an important role in an officer’s decision to stay on the force, other factors also come into play, says Aberdeen Police Chief Charles Campbell.

"One of the problems is that they come in with certain job expectations," Campbell says. "Those expectations are not always met."

Young officers who come into the field prepared for the excitement of "NYPD Blue," or "Homicide: Life on the Streets," may find the routine, everyday duties of law enforcement in a small town a bit dull.

Aberdeen puts recruits through a 12-week field-training program similar to Southern Pines’, where the officers learn the streets, the community and the departmental procedures.

Trainees take written tests during to evaluate their performance, Campbell says — but "being a law officer is a constant training process."