The Federal Workforce

The federal government is the nation’s largest employer, a huge enterprise with more than 1.6 million full-time, permanent civilian workers (1.9 million including non-permanent and part-time employees). These numbers do not include the U.S. Postal Service, a quasi-independent agency with about 656,000 career employees, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which does not release employment data for security reasons, but is estimated to employ about 100,000 people.

Federal employees work in 15 Cabinet-level departments, 20 large, independent agencies (defined as having more than 1,000 employees) and 80 small agencies. The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs employ the most permanent, full-time civilian employees—611,869 and 236,167, respectively.

Key facts about the federal workforce:

Federal employees work throughout the country

Eighty-five percent of all federal employees work outside of the D.C. area and around the world. The top 10 states with the highest number of federal employees are California, Virginia, Texas, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New York, Washington and Ohio.

Source: Fedscope 09/08

The federal workforce is diverse

Men comprise 56.5 percent of all federal employees and women 43.5 percent. Minorities constitute 33.4 percent of the workforce—African-American 17.9 percent, Hispanic 7.2 percent, Asian 5.3 percent and Native American 2.0 percent.

The federal workforce is highly educated

Nearly 75 percent of federal workers have an associate/bachelor/post graduate degree or some college education, compared to 54 percent in the private sector.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Census, Current Population Survey (CPS), Annual Social and Economic Survey File, March 2006.

The federal workforce is aging

A key factor in the growing number of job opportunities is the aging of the federal workforce, requiring government agencies to plan for the replacement of large numbers of retirees in the years ahead. Nearly 39 percent of the federal workforce is 50 years of age or older, contrasted to about 24 percent in the private sector. The average federal employee is 47 years of age with 16.3 years of service, according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

By the end of fiscal 2012, OPM projects that 241,428 federal employees will retire. Extending the time frame to 10 years, one out of every three federal employees is expected to retire by 2018.

Although each federal agency will experience the retirement wave, the impact will be felt more severely by some agencies. The federal entities that will be most affected include the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Aviation Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Education and the General Services Administration, according to OPM data.