Special rate employees—white collar employees who get additional pay for being in hard-to-fill positions—will get the same 2.5 percent across-the-board component being paid as part of the GS raise, OPM has said. Special rate employees get the higher of their special rate adjustment or locality pay, but not both. For 2008, five special rate schedules are being dropped because locality pay in their area has caught up to the special rate adjustment. There are now 248 special rate tables covering about 47,000 employees.