U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

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Executive Summary

Federal Workforce
Total Employment

Blacks
Employment
Occupational Category
GS & Related/Senior Pay
Executive Department
Independent Agencies

Hispanics
Employment
Occupational Category
GS & Related/Senior Pay
Executive Department
Independent Agencies

Asian/Pacific Islanders
Employment
Occupational Category
GS & Related/Senior Pay
Executive Department
Independent Agencies

Native Americans
Employment
Occupational Category
GS & Related/Senior Pay
Executive Department
Independent Agencies

Women
Employment
Occupational Category
GS & Related/Senior Pay
Executive Department
Independent Agencies

Agency FEORP Initiatives
Hispanic Employment Initiative
Agencies Required to Report
Data Coverage and Definitions

DATA COVERAGE AND DEFINITIONS

On-board Federal employment statistics used in this report are as of September 30, 2002. All data are produced from the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Central Personnel Data File (CPDF). The Federal workforce (FW) referred to in this report is not the entire FW. This report covers only permanent employees in those nonpostal Federal Executive Branch agencies participating in the CPDF, and is further limited to workers in General Schedule and Related (GSR) pay plans, blue-collar pay plans, and employees at Senior Pay levels. All reference made to the General Schedule pay plan in this report actually refers to General Schedule and Related (GSR) pay plans. Senior Pay level employment includes employees in the Senior Executive Service (SES), Senior Foreign Service, and other employees earning salaries above grade 15 of the General Schedule, but excludes those employees under the Executive Schedule (pay plan EX). Only those agencies with 500 or more GSR and blue-collar permanent employees are displayed in this report.

Note that some agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Transportation have large numbers of permanent employees in non-GSR, blue-collar, and executive pay plans, and are not covered by the Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment program. Moreover, during 2002, there has been a Governmentwide shift toward white-collar employment away from the General Schedule and into new pay plans that are not relatable to the General Schedule and, as a result, are also not covered by this program. This trend affects both new and on-board employees and influences statements made in this report. For example, we note a decline in Black employment, however upon closer examination, we found that the Securities and Exchange Commission converted all of its employees that were under the General Schedule and Senior Executive Service pay plans last year to pay plans “SK” and “SO” in 2002. This shift accounts for more than half of the “decline” in Black employment from September 30, 2001 to September 30, 2002. Also, the new Transportation Security Administration’s over 30,000 employees are mostly in a new “SV” pay plan; therefore, although TSA meets the criteria of a minimum of 500 employees for inclusion in Federal Workforce data presented in this report, their use of pay plans that are not relatable to the General Schedule precludes their inclusion in our analyses. These changes are especially important when interpreting statistics in this report. Much of the diversity in certain agencies may have shifted to non-GSR pay plans. As a result, not only are those groups not reflected in this report, but their exclusion may negatively affect the reported representation of minorities in such agencies.

The Civilian Labor Force (CLF) data are derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics September 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS) and the 1990 Decennial Census. The CPS is a sample of 50,000 households across the nation and the sample changes from year-to-year. Because of the changing sample, there can be wide fluctuations in a group, like Hispanics, depending on which households are selected. Because of the small sampling size, the CPS does not have separate counts for Asian/Pacific Islanders or Native Americans. Each group’s percentage representation in the CPS was extrapolated using the 1990 census to calculate their proportional representation from the CPS “Black and Other” category. The CLF data cover every non-institutionalized individual 16 years of age and older, employed and unemployed, while Federal employment data exclude temporary, intermittent, or term-specific workers. The CLF data include employed and unemployed U.S. citizens and noncitizens, while the CPDF data are predominantly Federally-employed U.S. citizens.

The Relevant Civilian Labor Force (RCLF) is the Civilian Labor Force (CLF) data that are directly comparable (or relevant) to the population being considered in the FW. For example, if we were analyzing representation of Black engineers employed in the Federal workforce, we would compare them with Black engineers reported in the CLF. The Black engineers in the CLF represent the RCLF in this example. In the FEORP report, FW comparisons to the RCLF are the basis for occupational analysis.

Underrepresentation, as defined in 5 CFR, Section 720.202, means a situation in which the number of women or members of a minority group within a category of civil service employment constitutes a lower percentage of the total number of employees within the employment category than the percentage that women or the minority group constitutes within the civilian labor force of the United States.

Occupational categories discussed in this report are White-Collar and Blue-Collar. The White-Collar category contains Professional, Administrative, Technical, Clerical or “Other” White-Collar occupations. Professional occupations typically call for a baccalaureate degree and, along with Administrative occupations, are the usual sources for selections to senior management and executive positions. Positions in Technical, Clerical, Other, and Blue-Collar occupations usually are limited to lower grades with limited opportunity for promotion to management levels. Advancement in these occupations often depends on individual attainment of further education or advanced skills. Employment data in this report are presented by occupational category and grade groups, in order to show a more informative profile.

NOTE: STATISTICS IN THIS REPORT MAY VARY FROM OTHER RELEASES BECAUSE OF DIFFERENCES IN COVERAGE (e.g., AGENCY, WORK SCHEDULE, TENURE, and DATES).