The NIH workforce profile looks just about the same as it did this time last year, according to information from the NIH Data Warehouse, which compiles such figures:

• Women comprise about 59 percent of NIH employees.
• There are 7,773 males filling the agency’s full-time equivalencies (FTEs, in human resources language). That’s a slight increase over the previous fiscal year’s total of 7,646.
• Average age of the NIH population remains 48.1 for men and about 45.7 for women.
• We recorded 2,739 “separations” from NIH over the last year, with 426 of those by way of retirement. Just under 400 had retired from NIH by the same time in the previous year.
• On average, NIH’ers have compiled a little over 13 years of federal service, with a bit more than 10 years of service at NIH.
• We have about 18,500 employees on staff; there were 18,180 of us on board in the previous fiscal year.
• Including postdocs and visiting fellows (foreign scientists), NIH had an estimated 6,500 scientists as of Sept. 29, 2007. The Office of Intramural Research defines scientist as someone with an M.D. or a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline.