The number of full-time, permanent non-seasonal federal employees—what is typically considered the “core” federal workforce—increased slightly in 2015 over 2014 but the ratio per 1,000 Americans decreased slightly, according to newly released OPM data.
The report put the count of those employees as of the end of fiscal 2015 last September at 1,838,352, about 13,000 above the level of 2014. That amounted to 5.719 federal workers per 1,000, down from 5.725, as the population increased from 318.9 million to 321.4 million.
That ratio is commonly cited as a gauge of government’s role in society, although it has several limitations: it doesn’t count contractors, nor other levels of government and their contractors. Further, it doesn’t include temporary, part-time and seasonal federal workers, whose numbers as of September 2015 were 220,572, up by about 600 over 2014.
Also, the numbers vary somewhat during the year. The reported September figure for the core workforce was the highest during the fiscal year; it was low as 1,818,904 in January. The September figure for others was about in the middle of the year’s range from about 209,000 to about 236,000. That variance is largely driven by summer seasonal workers, for example at national parks.