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By: FEDweek StaffRetirement of non-postal federal employees fell in fiscal year 2021 along with other forms of turnover, newly released data from OPM show.
Retirements for the budget year that ended last September 30 totaled 56,352, compared with 62,320 the year before. In the five years previously, retirements had ranged from about 63,400 to about 66,800.
The numbers differ from other data on retirements because the OPM database includes only executive branch agencies apart from the USPS, whose employees are included, for example, in the reports OPM issues on processing of retirement applications.
As is always the case, standard voluntary retirements accounted for more than nine-tenths of retirements in 2021, nearly 52,860, while disability retirements accounted for 1,858, early-out retirements 505 and “other”—including mandatory retirements in certain occupations—1,129.
Overall turnover in 2021 was just above 200,000, compared with nearly 223,000 in 2020; in the prior five years it ranged from about 200,900 to about 209,600. About the same number as in 2020, more than 73,000, quit while separations for disciplinary reasons fell by about 2,400 to just under 9,000 and deaths in service were about level at about 3,600.
Transfers of employees between agencies and employees being separated at the end of time-limited appointments account for the rest.
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