Federal Workforce Trends
The U.S. federal civilian workforce employs roughly 2.3 million people — but the composition, geography, and size of that workforce shifts continuously with policy, demographics, and technology. OPM FedScope data provides an unusually detailed window into these changes. This guide explains what the data shows and how to interpret it.
Source: OPM FedScope (March 2025) · 7 min read OPM FedScope (March 2025) · 7 min read
Compiled by the " research team.
Agency Growth and Contraction
Not all federal agencies move in the same direction. FedScope tracks employee counts by agency over time, and the patterns reveal which parts of the government are expanding to meet growing mission demands and which are contracting.
Growing Agencies
- Department of Veterans Affairs: The VA is the largest civilian agency and has grown steadily to expand healthcare capacity for a rising veteran population — particularly post-9/11 veterans aging into the healthcare system. Medical staff, social workers, and mental health professionals have increased significantly.
- Department of Homeland Security: Created after 9/11 by consolidating multiple agencies, DHS has continued growing to staff border protection, cybersecurity (CISA), and emergency management (FEMA) functions.
- IRS (Inflation Reduction Act): The IRS received significant funding to hire additional enforcement and taxpayer service personnel. FedScope data reflects this hiring surge in Treasury Department employee counts.
Shrinking or Flat Agencies
- General Services Administration: Shared services consolidation and digital transformation have reduced the need for some administrative functions.
- Postal Service (not in FedScope): USPS employment has declined significantly with mail volume — though this does not appear in FedScope as USPS is an independent agency.
- Some regulatory agencies: Small independent agencies have seen headcount reduction driven by budget constraints and, periodically, by policy decisions to reduce regulatory capacity.
Explore real-time agency employee counts at PlainGovJobs Agencies. FedScope data shows current counts with year-over-year change indicators.
Occupation Shifts in the Federal Workforce
OPM tracks 634 occupation codes across the federal government. The mix of occupations has shifted significantly over the past two decades, driven by technology, mission change, and hiring freezes.
Occupation Trends to Watch
IT Management (2210 series), Information Security (2210), and Data Science positions have grown across agencies as the government modernizes infrastructure and responds to cyber threats. The GS-2210 series is among the largest occupation series by headcount.
Physicians, nurses, psychologists, and social workers within the VA account for a significant share of federal healthcare occupation growth. The 600-series occupations (medical, dental, public health) have expanded substantially.
Traditional administrative occupations (secretary, typist, file clerk) have declined sharply. Digital workflows, shared service centers, and self-service systems have automated many of these functions. The GS-1 through GS-4 grade range has shrunk significantly as a result.
Browse all 634 federal occupations with employee counts and average salaries at PlainGovJobs Occupations.
Geographic Distribution of Federal Jobs
Federal employment is far more geographically diverse than the "Washington bureaucracy" stereotype suggests. The majority of federal employees work outside Washington DC — supporting military installations, national parks, ports, hospitals, and field offices across every state.
- Virginia leads all states — not DC itself — due to the concentration of DoD, intelligence community, and DHS operations in the Northern Virginia suburbs. The Pentagon is in Arlington, VA.
- California ranks second, driven by defense installations, VA medical centers, border protection along the Mexico border, and civilian agencies in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
- Texas is third, with significant military presence at Fort Cavazos, Fort Sam Houston, Joint Base San Antonio, and numerous Air Force installations.
- Mid-Atlantic concentration: Maryland hosts NIH in Bethesda, FDA in Silver Spring, NSA in Fort Meade, and Social Security Administration in Baltimore.
- Rural states have disproportionate federal presence through national parks, BLM land management, and military training ranges. Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska have higher federal employment rates (as a share of state workforce) than their raw headcounts suggest.
Explore federal employment across all 51 states and territories at PlainGovJobs States.
Reading Monthly Workforce Dynamics
FedScope provides monthly accession and separation data — one of the most granular workforce tracking datasets available for any large employer. Key signals to watch:
- Retirement spikes in January: Many federal employees retire at year-end or early January to capture a full year of leave payout and align with the start of a new calendar year. January separation data typically shows elevated retirement counts.
- Hiring surges in summer: Many agencies ramp up hiring of interns and recent graduates in May through August, boosting accession numbers. These often separate at the end of summer, creating a corresponding September spike in separations.
- RIF signals: A Reduction in Force (RIF) shows up as a spike in involuntary separations classified as "RIF" in FedScope dynamics data. This is distinct from the normal flow of voluntary quits and retirements.
- Net workforce change: Subtracting total separations from total accessions gives net change. Sustained negative net change signals workforce contraction — either deliberate downsizing or a hiring freeze outpaced by normal attrition.
See the latest monthly dynamics at PlainGovJobs Workforce Trends.
Largest Federal Occupational Series by Headcount
The OPM occupation classification system organizes federal civilian jobs into more than 600 numbered series. A small handful account for a disproportionate share of the workforce. Tracking employment in these dominant series is one of the fastest ways to read agency priorities and mission shift signals — when the 2210 IT series grows faster than 0301 general admin, that is a measurable modernization signal, not a press release.
| Series | Title | Approx. Employees | Dominant Agency |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0610 | Nurse | ≈ 95,000 | Veterans Affairs (VA) |
| 2210 | Information Technology Management | ≈ 90,000 | DoD, DHS, Treasury, VA |
| 0301 | Miscellaneous Administration & Program | ≈ 85,000 | Fleet-wide |
| 1811 | Criminal Investigator (1811-series LEO) | ≈ 35,000 | DOJ, DHS, Treasury |
| 0602 | Medical Officer (Physician) | ≈ 30,000 | Veterans Affairs (VA) |
| 0343 | Management & Program Analysis | ≈ 60,000 | Fleet-wide |
The 0610 Nurse and 0602 Medical Officer series together reflect the VA's outsized role in federal employment: roughly one in four civilian federal employees works for the VA, and a large share of those positions are clinical. Movement in IT (2210) versus general administration (0301) is the cleanest single proxy for whether the executive branch is investing in modernization or maintaining status-quo back-office capacity.
What FedScope Does Not Capture
FedScope is a powerful dataset, but understanding its limits is important for accurate interpretation:
- Military personnel are excluded. Active duty, reserve, and National Guard members are not in civilian FedScope.
- Contractors — the large "shadow workforce" that delivers many federal services — are not tracked in FedScope. The true scope of federal work is larger than civilian employee counts suggest.
- Intelligence community agencies report limited data. CIA, NSA, and other IC components have restricted reporting.
- USPS is an independent agency and does not appear in FedScope.
Finance Disclaimer
This guide presents federal workforce data for informational purposes only. Workforce trends reflect historical OPM FedScope data and do not constitute predictions about future employment conditions or policy outcomes. Career decisions should be made with reference to current agency hiring activity and official OPM resources at usajobs.gov.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which federal agencies have been growing the fastest?
Based on OPM FedScope data, agencies with mission-driven growth include the Department of Veterans Affairs (expanding healthcare capacity), the Social Security Administration (handling demographic-driven caseload increases), and DoD components tied to national security priorities. Conversely, administrative and overhead agencies have seen relatively flat or declining headcounts as shared services and automation reduce the need for duplicative staff.
What does "accession" and "separation" mean in workforce data?
Accessions are employees entering federal service through any mechanism — new hires, rehires, transfers from other agencies, or conversions from temporary to permanent status. Separations are employees leaving federal service — through retirement, voluntary quit, reduction in force (RIF), termination, or transfer out. The net difference (accessions minus separations) determines whether the workforce is growing or shrinking in a given period.
Is the federal workforce growing or shrinking overall?
The federal civilian workforce has remained remarkably stable in absolute size for decades — hovering around 2.1–2.3 million employees since the 1970s, even as the US population doubled. Recent years have seen modest growth in certain mission-critical agencies while others have been flat or declining. FedScope monthly dynamics data provides the most current view of accession and separation flows.
Which states have the most federal employees?
Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland dominate due to agency headquarters concentration in the national capital area. Beyond the DC metro, California, Texas, and Florida rank highly due to large military installations, VA facilities, and port/border operations. States like Wyoming and Vermont have the fewest federal employees. The distribution reflects mission geography more than population — a state with a major military base or national laboratory will have disproportionately high federal employment.
What occupation areas are growing in the federal workforce?
Cybersecurity, information technology, and data science positions have grown significantly as agencies modernize legacy systems. Healthcare occupations within the VA have expanded substantially. STEM positions across agencies like NIH, NASA, and EPA reflect mission demands. Meanwhile, traditional administrative and clerical occupations have declined as digital workflows reduce paper-based work. Law enforcement and border protection occupations have seen policy-driven fluctuations.
What does OPM FedScope not capture about workforce trends?
FedScope covers executive branch civilian employees only. It excludes military personnel (approximately 1.3 million active duty), postal service employees (USPS is an independent agency not in FedScope), legislative branch employees (Congress, GAO, Library of Congress), judicial branch employees, and intelligence community components that do not report full data. It also does not directly capture contractor headcounts — a significant share of the de facto federal workforce.
Explore PlainGovJobs Data
Data source: OPM FedScope, March 2025. Covers U.S. executive branch civilian employees. Military, USPS, and legislative/judicial branch employees excluded.
