ABSTRACT The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation is a public research company, comprised of a central management structure and forty-three research centers. Given the recent dismissal of employees, due to retirement or to promoted layoffs, and the expected announcement of a recruitment to replace the staff, it is important to define how these vacancies will be distributed among its member units. This study proposes data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to allocate the vacancies to the company’s research centers, using Zero Sum Gains DEA (ZSG-DEA). We studied both production and performance modeling perspectives. Given the approaches adopted and the variables selected, the ZSG-DEA models generated allocation proposals in which all units are 100% efficient. This is the ideal scenario for a central management: maximum efficiency in the use of its resources. company fortythree forty three centers employees layoffs staff (DEA companys s ZSGDEA. ZSGDEA ZSG . (ZSG-DEA) perspectives selected 100 efficient resources (ZSG-DEA 10 1