Too Many Federal Workers?
BY ALLAN HOLMES 09/07/10
Over the weekend, Amity Shlaes, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in The Wall Street Journal about the differences between private and public sector workers. She sketches out the history of unions in the federal government and what she concludes as a rather obvious point: If we just had fewer government workers, we would spend less on paying them.
She writes:
Another factor leading to the rise of the public unions is the decade-over-decade increase in the size of government. Not only through the New Deal, but also through the 1950s and onward the number of workers in the public sector grew. By 1962 they represented an eighth of the national work force. If we did not have so many government employees today, the cost of sustaining them would not be so high.
Here is the number of federal employees by decade (in millions and excluding U.S. Postal workers), as listed by the Office of Personnel Management:
1940 0.70
1950 1.44
1960 1.81
1970 2.20
1980 2.16
1990 2.25
2000 1.78
2009 2.10
There were fewer federal workers in 2009 than in 1990, 1980 and 1970. Now take a closer look at the OPM table. Much of the growth, understandably, occurred in Homeland Security agencies, increasing from 70,000 to 180,000 - a jump of 110,000. Justice Department jobs went from 98,000 to 113,000 -- more than 15,000 new jobs added. (Again, crime and more Homeland Security related.) Jobs at the Veterans Department increased from 220,000 to 297,000 -- that's 77,000 more federal workers. Again, a result of Homeland Security, or rather staffing up to take care of thousands of veterans coming home from two wars. And there's a lot of information technology jobs in there.
So, taking those three areas, the number of new jobs created in the last 10 years, which can be traced back to 9/11, was 202,000. That by itself accounts for nearly two-thirds of the total federal workforce growth from 2000 to 2009, which was 316,000 jobs. Hold those steady since 2002 (or even allow for some growth), and you would have less than 1.9 million workers in 2009, or slightly more. That's about the same number of federal workers in 1962, the year Shlaes chooses as her benchmark to compare the number of government jobs to the number in the private sector (with public sector jobs accounting for an eighth of all jobs). Remember, that was before the Great Society programs geared up, popular programs that needed a slew of federal managers and clerks to oversee.
By the way, the number of jobs at the Interior, Transportation and Treasury departments fell from 2000 to 2009. And those at Health and Human Services, Education and the Social Security Administration grew from 1.26 million to 1.39 million -- 130,000 jobs over 10 years, or about 13,000 new positions a year as the health industry expanded at a torrid pace.
It helps to understand what tax dollars are paying for so that people have some perspective of what they are buying - as in this case homeland security and wars. After 9/11, the public was demanding the federal government do something. It did -- and it took people to manage it. That puts much of the criticism leveled at the federal government into perspective.
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http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Significant Points
• With about 2.0 million civilian employees, the Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service, is the Nation's largest employer.
• About 85 percent of Federal employees work outside the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
• A substantial number of job openings will arise as many Federal workers are expected to retire over the next decade; competition is high during times of economic uncertainty, however, when workers seek the stability of Federal employment.
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There will be a substantial number of job openings as many Federal workers are expected to retire over the next decade, although job prospects are expected to vary by occupation.
Anne's note: the largest percentage of Federal workers are at or near retirement age -- and are therefore at the top of the pay scale for their occupation.
(Various hiring freezes in the last couple of decades). The IRS is currently under a hiring freeze, and cannot replace of move/reassign workers when someone retires or leaves the Government.
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Management, business, and financial occupations. Management, business, and financial workers made up about 34 percent of Federal employment in 2008..
Professional and related occupations. Professional and related occupations accounted for 33 percent of Federal employment (table 3). The largest groups of professional workers were in healthcare practitioner and technical occupations; life, physical, and social science occupations; and architecture and engineering occupations. The Federal Government also employs a substantial number lawyers, judges and related workers who, interpret, administer and enforce many of the country's laws and regulations.
Office and administrative support occupations. About 14 percent of Federal workers were in office and administrative support occupations. These employees aid management and other staff with administrative duties, such as scheduling appointments, drafting e-mail and other correspondence, maintaining financial documents, and executing purchase orders. Administrative support workers in the Federal Government include information and record clerks, financial clerks, and secretaries and administrative assistants.
Service occupations. Service workers hold a relatively small share of Federal employment, compared to their share of all industries combined. About 5 percent of service workers in the Federal Government were protective service workers, such as correctional officers and jailers, detectives and criminal investigators, and police officers. These workers protect the public from crime and oversee Federal prisons.
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Anne's note: as noted above, 67% of the Federal workforce is engaged in professional occupations, requiring college degrees. A low skill job, such as a janitor, is generally not on the Federal payroll because our real estate leases are turn-key operations, and the janitors are hired by the lessors.
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In 2010, the IRS had a workforce of 94,711. That’s higher than in any year since 2004, though below the peak employment in 1992 of 116,673.
* The size of the workforce is smaller today than when Lyndon Johnson was president, yet there are about 110 million more Americans now.
* In the past 10 years, 100,000 federal civil servants have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* Since 1992, 2,965 federal civil servants have been killed while on duty, including 24 in war zones. “Their sacrifice is just as dear” as the sacrifices by those in the military, Berry said.
With facts such as these, federal workers have something “to fight back with,” he added.
Berry said there should be a way to honor civilian employees who die on duty, something like the Purple Heart for members of the armed services. “We need to be thinking about how we can best honor them,” he said.
The focus on federal employees continues on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when the Senate’s federal workforce subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), holds a hearing on “Inspiring Students to Federal Service.” On the agenda is the executive order designed to facilitate the recruitment and hiring of students that President Obama signed in December.
Several of the town hall speakers lamented comments by politicians that undercut federal employees. Most of those remarks have come from congressional Republicans, but one of the speakers Tuesday, LaHood, is a former Republican congressman, and he strongly backed federal workers and the president’s support for them.
“I despise that,” LaHood said of attacks on employees. The “easiest thing” for a politician to do, he added, is to take potshots at government workers.
Though going after government workers is easy, politicians love to be seen praising veterans. They should know, as Berry pointed out, that 30 percent of the government’s new hires last year were vets. Furthermore, hiring of vets increased by 2,000 last year compared with the year before, even as overall hiring dropped by 11,000; and 25 percent of civil servants are veterans.
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