A Guide to Federal Workforce Data Given the intense focus currently on the federal workforce due to Trump administration cutbacks, it is important to understand what data about federal employees is available, what it can tell us and its limitations. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service has been publishing analyses using federal workforce data from the Office of Personnel Management’s FedScope database for many years, but there are several datasets that offer different information about federal workers. While these sources largely do not provide real-time, detailed information on the changes currently happening, they offer a valuable baseline on the federal workforce. In this Fed Figures report, we provide an overview of three different datasets—from OPM, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics—and what each can tell us about the federal workforce. FedScope The Source FedScope is an online tool provided by the Office of Personnel Management that offers data about most executive branch federal employees. The information available via FedScope comes from the Enterprise Human Resources Integration dataset, which compiles employment data provided by individual agencies across the government. FedScope data is available for the months at the end of the quarters of the federal fiscal year (December, March, June and September), but OPM often needs months to process and provide the data after a quarter has ended. FedScope offers a variety of detailed information about the federal workforce in the executive branch, including employment counts by agency, state, occupation, appointment type and a variety of other factors. Although some federal employees are not included in FedScope—including the U.S. Postal Service, most of the intelligence community and most legislative and judicial branch employees—this tool is the most comprehensive source of detailed data on the composition of the federal workforce. The Data According to FedScope, there were 2,313,216 career federal employees as of September 2024, the most recent data currently available. The table below, showing federal employees by agency type, demonstrates the type of data available via this tool. FedScope data can be filtered to show only the core full-time, nonseasonal permanent federal workforce—those who work full-time and year-round in positions that do not have a set expiration date. Data for this segment of the federal workforce, which encompasses the vast majority of federal employees, can be seen in our overview of the federal workforce in fiscal year 2023. The table above, however, includes data for all employees covered in FedScope, including part-time employees and those who work in seasonal jobs. To understand the geographic distribution of those 2.3 million employees, FedScope provides information on federal employees by state, as seen below. However, FedScope does not provide data on the distribution of the federal workforce within more granular geographic areas, such as counties or congressional districts. American Community Survey The Source The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, administered each year, also contains data on the number of federal employees. The ACS collects a variety of data about the American population on topics including demographics, housing and employment. Counts of federal employees from the ACS rely on respondents self-reporting as federal civilian employees. FedScope, in contrast, contains official data from agencies. In understanding the federal workforce, data from the American Community Survey is most useful for counts of federal employee locations below the state level because ACS provides estimates for federal employees by congressional district and by county. However, while location data from FedScope is based on duty station—where employees work—location data from the ACS is based on the respondents’ place of residence. So, for example, a federal employee who works in Washington, D.C. but lives in Virginia would be counted in the former in FedScope data, and in the latter in the ACS data. The Data The most recent ACS data is from 2023. Unlike data from FedScope, ACS data does not provide an exact count but offers estimates with margins of error. The map below demonstrates what ACS can tell us about the federal workforce—showing the estimated 2023 federal workforce by congressional district. This data shows even more clearly the broad distribution of the federal workforce around the country. ACS data also can be used for estimates of federal employees by county. As an example, the map below shows the 2023 estimates for federal employees by county in Colorado. Bureau of Labor Statistics The Source Another source of data on the size of the federal workforce comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics program. This data covers employment across a variety of sectors of the American workforce, including the federal government. CES data measures non-farm employment, which means the overall numbers exclude those working in agriculture. CES estimates are produced each month from a survey of businesses and government agencies which provide information on their employment numbers. The CES data includes information on the size of the overall government workforce—including employees in local and state governments as well as the federal government. This data source is most useful for tracking monthly trends in federal employment and for understanding the size of the federal government in comparison to other industries, other levels of government and employment overall. The Data The most recent CES data, from April 2025, estimates federal employment, including the U.S. Postal Service, at 2,989,000. The table below shows the CES estimate of federal government employment in comparison with the estimates for employment at other levels of government and total non-farm employment.
