Veterans accounted for 30.8 percent of the federal workforce in 2014, up from 26.3 percent, OPM has said in releasing statistics that reflect the continued emphasis on outreach to veterans in recruiting and the impact of veterans preference in hiring decisions.
Agencies with notably high percentages of veterans in their workforces included the military services–Air Force, 56.9 percent; Army, 49.7; Navy, 42.7–as well as Transportation, 36.4 percent, the VA, 32.9, and Justice, 28.2. At the lower end were HHS, 7.2, and EPA, 8.
Of the 180,562 persons hired by the government in 2014, 599,992 had veteran status, 33.2 percent. That compares to 72,133 of the 281,651 hired in 2010, 25.6 percent. Most were hired under standard hiring procedures. Two special laws, the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act and the Veterans Recruitment Act, accounted for only about 19,000 of the hires, while a special hiring authority for those with disabilities of 30 percent or more accounted for fewer than 2,000. Several other authorities for relatives of current or former military personnel also made up tiny percentages.
Retention–measured by those still on board two years after initial hiring–was consistently lower for veterans than for non-veterans, however.
