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

This is the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s) Fiscal Year 2002 Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (FEORP) report to Congress. The FEORP is an important recruiting initiative designed to eliminate underrepresentation of minorities and women in the Federal service, established and assigned to OPM by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. 7201).

OPM and the Office of Management and Budget have issued Standards for Success in strategic human capital management. One of the six standards requires agencies to have a “diverse, results-oriented, high performance workforce.” To help agencies address diversity as well as other standards, OPM has provided an assessment framework that defines critical success factors and suggests performance indicators. This guidance, which cites FEORP activities, underscores the need not only to analyze workforce diversity trends and address any underrepresentation, but to be responsive to the needs of diverse groups of employees.

We believe that Federal agencies should use this report as a resource to develop effective recruitment and retention strategies to increase workforce diversity. We therefore encourage agency heads to ensure wide distribution of this report. It may be viewed and downloaded from OPM’s website at http://www.opm.gov/feorp02.

The law establishing the FEORP, 5 U.S.C. 7201, covers those Federal Executive Branch employees in the General Schedule and Federal Wage System pay plans. It is important to note that over the last ten years, there has been a slow but steady shift of white-collar employment out of the General Schedule and into new pay plans that are not relatable to the General Schedule. For example, from FY 2001 to FY 2002, nearly 3,000 General Schedule employees were moved to new pay plans “SO” and “SV.” This is important to keep in mind when interpreting this report, because statements made herein reflect on the remaining FEORP covered population. Much of the diversity in certain agencies may have shifted to non-covered pay plans. As a result, not only are those groups not reflected in this report, but their exclusion may negatively impact the reported representation of minorities in affected agencies. With this in mind, the following highlights are presented.

The FY 2002 FEORP report shows that the Federal Government continues to be a leader in employing minorities. The representation of minorities in the Federal workforce increased from 467,376 (30.8 percent) in 2001 to 470,827 (31.1 percent) in 2002. Some additional findings in the FY 2002 FEORP report are:

• Overall, minority groups are better represented in the FW than in the civilian labor force (CLF) with one exception -- Hispanics. Despite a trend of increased Hispanic representation, Hispanics remain the only underrepresented minority group in the Federal Government, representing 6.9 percent of the FW compared to 12.2 percent of the CLF. The Federal Government also lags behind the CLF in the employment of women, 44.0 to 46.6 percent.
• The representation of women and minorities in GSR grades 13-15 increased. Minority representation rose 3,917, from 65,706 (19.9 percent) in 2001 to 69,623 (20.5 percent) in 2002. The representation of women rose by 5,194, from 104,625 (31.7 percent) in 2001 to 109,819 (32.4 percent) in 2002.
• The representation of minorities and women in professional and administrative occupations increased. Minority representation rose by 7,974, from 207,096 (24.9 percent) in 2001 to 215,070 (25.4 percent) in 2002. The representation of women rose by 9,234, from 347,055 (41.8 percent) in 2001 to 356,289 (42.2 percent) in 2002.