{"id":30008,"date":"2021-03-09T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/fed-figures\/fed-figures-covid-19-and-the-federal-workforce\/"},"modified":"2024-01-30T11:10:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T16:10:01","slug":"fed-figures-covid-19-and-the-federal-workforce","status":"publish","type":"pps_fed_figures","link":"https:\/\/ourpublicservice.org\/fed-figures\/fed-figures-covid-19-and-the-federal-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Fed Figures: COVID-19 and the Federal Workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/i>Back to Fed Figures<\/span><\/a>\n\n\n\n

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Fed Figures: COVID-19 and the Federal Workforce<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a once-in-a-generation challenge for the federal government and its 2 million employees, creating urgent new missions and fundamentally altering how government engages the public. This analysis sheds light on the key characteristics of our nation\u2019s federal civilian workforce in this period, many of whom are on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus. What impact has this public health emergency had on the makeup of the federal workforce? How has the accompanying economic crisis affected government hiring and interest in federal jobs? The Partnership for Public Service analyzed federal workforce and hiring data to answer these and other questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless otherwise noted, all data in this analysis are for the full-time, nonseasonal, permanent, civilian workforce of the executive branch,<\/strong> and do not include employees of the legislative or judicial branches, the intelligence community, the U.S. Postal Service, foreign service officers or locally employed staff within the Department of State, or uniformed military personnel.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Percentages throughout may not appear to add up to 100 due to rounding.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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History of the Federal Workforce<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

During the course of several decades, the federal workforce as a percentage of the total U.S. population has steadily decreased. In absolute terms, the federal workforce of today is slightly smaller than it was 50 years ago, even as the U.S. population has increased by nearly two-thirds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, full-time and part-time federal employees made up 0.6% of the U.S. population. By the end of the year, as government scaled up its response to the pandemic, they made up 0.7%. But this modest growth in workforce per capita is still overshadowed by other historical ramp-ups in response to crises, such as the highs of the World War II era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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