Going back more than 50 years, I expected the number of federal workers to trend up, but it's flat. And when you take into account population growth, as percentage of employed the number of federal workers has gone down.

Anyone else surprised by this?

Now do NGO's.

That looks like something created by a 3rd grader that for a PowerPoint project

Why does this surprise you? Automation and digital advancements have reduced workers per job during this entire time.

Edit to add that state officials are closest to providing services that are directly tied to population such as roads, law enforcement etc.

I saw somewhere recently that approx 10% of the current workforce works for a NP. Not sure if true, but if so, that's nuts!

Local expands due to unfunded mandates at federal and state level.

Quote:

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Why does this surprise you? Automation and digital advancements have reduced workers per job during this entire time.

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But spending has skyrocketed and government has grown so much. I assumed the number of federal employees had, too.

Well that graph explains 21M of the of the Biden votes. The other 60M still confuse me.

sam callahan said:

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Quote:

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Why does this surprise you? Automation and digital advancements have reduced workers per job during this entire time.

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But spending has skyrocketed and government has grown so much. I assumed the number of federal employees had, too.

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People from USAID have bleeding all over the place yet you don't see that connection?

LOL.

Are they counting military as Federal employees?

The spending increases far outpacing fed employment levels shouldn't surprise anyone. A big part of the problem with federal employees is not necessarily the headcount although that is likely too high as well but who the employees are and what kind of politically motivated crap they have been directed to do by their management.

no

Nude photographer?

I suppose you are right.

I just assumed they were locking in as many dem voters as they could through federal employment. There has been a lot of new agencies added the last 60 years.

The thing that missing is government contractors. My office landlord has made a career of placing workers in research facilities, military bases, and all manner of other offices across the country. These small contractors are all across the country competing against each other and skimming 20% off the top of every employee they place. How does an org with millions of workers need hundreds or thousands of headhunters working on huge margins?

Of course these positions don't count as employees of the fed government and your graph is skewed as their ranks swell.

A bunch of those types work for NGO's would be my guess . That would be an interesting stat , how many NGO employees are there and what that trend looks like over time. That number has probably grown exponentially during and after the Obama admin would be my guess .

Yep. It's the public/private contracts that are so expensive.

In some cases the government puts insane requirements on contractors which drive up cost, but many contractors bilk the hell out of the system as well.

The new plants being built as a result of the CHIPS act are prime example. The government has required X number of unionized workers, X number of minority contractors and engineers, X number of childcare workers available for construction workers, etc. All while making sure many of the actual manufacturing experts from Taiwan can't be brought in to make the process more efficient. The list goes on and on.

NYSE Trading floor - 1980



NYSE Trading Floor - Present day

Wonder how many of those jobs are duplications, triplications, etc. where one job / position is redundant.

Maybe there was way too many employees years ago ... and that over the years of never ending budget increases and efficiencies the positions should have been eliminated/consolidated.

There is a lot missing in that.

Govt agencies have grown and number of have increased.
TSA for example
OSHA. And growth of the EPA
Contractors are a huge number. In my area it is 50% of folks.
I know under the Obummer admin military billets were canceled and replaced with civilian billets.

So there really is no way those levels are flat over time.

sam callahan said:

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Going back more than 50 years, I expected the number of federal workers to trend up, but it's flat. And when you take into account population growth, as percentage of employed the number of federal workers has gone down.

Anyone else surprised by this?

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The OP needs to provide a reference, or it is just a bunch of squiggly lines.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Mark Twain)

The moral of the story =
You can make numbers look anyway you'd like them to look.

sam callahan said:

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Going back more than 50 years, I expected the number of federal workers to trend up, but it's flat. And when you take into account population growth, as percentage of employed the number of federal workers has gone down.

Anyone else surprised by this?

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I assumed rightists knew this. This information has been out there. I almost started a similar thread the other night based on numbers I saw rather than a graph. But, it's not like anything I post will be given any sort of serious discussion so I didn't.

For what it's worth, we're $35T in debt. If there were only 1 government employee it would still be worth considering firing them.

It's not about rightest or leftest. It's about fiscal responsibility. Govt spending at EVERY level is toooo much. Fraudulently so.

GROK calls bull****:


"over the last two decades (2005 to 2024), the number of federal civilian employees has grown by approximately 525,000, representing a roughly 28% increase.
"

TA-OP said:

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sam callahan said:

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Going back more than 50 years, I expected the number of federal workers to trend up, but it's flat. And when you take into account population growth, as percentage of employed the number of federal workers has gone down.

Anyone else surprised by this?

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I assumed rightists knew this. This information has been out there. I almost started a similar thread the other night based on numbers I saw rather than a graph. But, it's not like anything I post will be given any sort of serious discussion so I didn't.

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LoL, tell.us what the source is. I can't even read the damn thing because the res is 800x600

Glad to see some others were surprised.

Sorry about the resolution.

https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2024/11/how-many-people-work-for-us-federal.html

here is better graph

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001

I don't believe that graph. Fed has a different graph of federal employee #s:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT

There is a congressional cap on the number of civil service employees at most agencies. They get around this by hiring contractors who, except for badge color, are often indistinguishable from the civil servants they share office space with.

same protections from being fired?

sam callahan said:

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same protections from being fired?

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Depends on the contract, but generally no.