Federal DeparturesOn the heels of budget cuts, pay freezes and hiring slow-downs, more than 114,000 people left the federal government in 2013, mostly through retirements. Additionally, the number of employees who voluntarily resigned from federal service increased every year since 2009. With the steady turnover, it is imperative for federal leaders to closely examine who they are losing and assess their short- and long-term needs. Who did government lose in 2013? Which agencies had the highest attrition rates and are people in specific occupations leaving at higher rates? To address these questions, the Partnership for Public Service analyzed recent separations data for full-time, nonseasonal, permanent civilian employees who left the federal government in fiscal 2013 in executive branch agencies, excluding the U.S. Postal Service.

RECENT DEPARTURE TRENDS BY FISCAL YEAR

RETIREMENT: Separation entitling employee to withdraw from retirement fund.

RESIGNATION: Voluntarily leaving one’s position.

TERMINATION OR REMOVAL: Employee dismissal either based on misconduct, unsatisfactory performance or an expiration of appointment, work or funds.

DEATH

REDUCTION IN FORCE (RIF): Separation resulting from lack of funds or elimination of position or agency.

OTHER SEPARATION: Departures that include resignations in lieu of termination and other agency-specific separations.

2014

SIZE OF THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE

2013 FEDERAL WORKFORCE

2.1 MILLION

FuLL-timE, nOnsEAsOnAL, pERmAnEnt EmpLOYEEs

1.8 MILLION

2010

1940

1960

1980

2000

1950

1970

1990

0.5 1.5 MILLION2.5

DEPARTURES

NEW HIRES

RECENT HIRING AND DEPARTURES TRENDS

The number of employees annually leaving the federal government increased from a low of 83,317 in 2009 to 115,661 in 2012 and leveled off at 114,354 in 2013. At the same time, the number of new employees hired by the government declined every year since 2009.

tOtAL GOVERnmEnt-WiDE DEpARtuREs in 2013

114,354pERCEnt OF tHE tOtAL FEDERAL WORKFORCE

6.2%pERCEnt inCREAsE in DEpARtuREs sinCE 2009

37.3%

Federal employees leave government service for a variety of reasons, including resignations, retirements, reductions in force, terminations or removal, and death. Retirements made up the largest classification of departures, accounting for 54.2 percent or 61,953 of all separations from federal service in 2013, while employees who resigned made up 34.5 percent of those who left.

60

90

120

150

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

76.7K

THOUSAND

2008 2010 2011 20132012

62.0K

39.5K

9.6K

2.9K

2009

*In 2013, there were 409 RIFs and 47 other separations.

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0

THOUSAND

*

114.4K

As government continues to lose more employees than it brings on board each year, who are we losing from federal service? The following pages offer a demographic profile of those employees who left in fiscal 2013 (October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013). For years of service and veteran status, the most recent data available for departures was from fiscal 2012.

PERCENT OF DEPARTURES

ADministRAtiOn, OpERAtiOns AnD GEnERAL mGmt.

16.4%

mEDiCAL, DEntAL AnD puBLiC HEALtH

15.2%

inVEstiGAtiOn AnD inspECtiOn

7.4%

ACCOuntinG AnD BuDGEt

5.7%EXITING EMPLOYEES IN 2013 18,733 17,361 8,507 6,547

EXITING EMPLOYEES IN 2012 20,429 15,923 7,993 7,207

TOP 10 OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS FOR FEDERAL DEPARTURES

A profile of recent federal departures

PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE

GENDER

MALE

FEMALE

Women accounted for 43.4 percent of all separations from federal service during fiscal 2013. This number closely mirrors the current makeup of the federal workforce, where 42.7 percent of federal employees in 2013 were women. This, along with recent hiring trends, continues to reinforce the gender gap between men and women in the federal workforce.

TOTAL FEDERAL WORKFO

RCE

42.7%57.3%

56+44 43.4 56.6

HIRING RATEATTRITION RATE

ARMY

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

INTERIOR

BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS

VETERANS AFFAIRS

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

ENERGY

5 10 1551015

DEFENSE

LABOR

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

4.0

7.4

7.2

7.0

6.8

6.7

6.5

6.4

6.4

8.6

AGENCY ATTRITION RATES VERSUS AGENCY HIRING RATES

Attrition rates are calculated by dividing the number of departures throughout the fiscal year by the size of the workforce at the end of that fiscal year. Of all mid-size and large agencies—those with 1,000 or more employees—the Department of the Army and the National Labor Relations Board had the highest attrition rates during fiscal 2013. This is juxtaposed with agency hiring rates, which we calculated by dividing the number of hires throughout the fiscal year by the size of the workforce at the end of that fiscal year. The government-wide average attrition rate was 6.2 percent.

0

8.0

8.0

2.6

5.2

3.9

4.5

1.1

2.1

2.3

3.4

YEARS OF SERVICE Those who served for fewer than 10 years made up the largest number of employees who left federal service every year from 2002 to 2012, accounting for approximately one-third of the departures during this time. Years of service refers to the number of years of federal civilian employment, including creditable military service. Complete departures data for years of service was not available for 2013.

< 10

10–19

20–29

30–39

40+

50

2002 2003 2006 201220082004 2005 2007 20102009 2011

THOUSAND

40.3K

30.5K

24.0K

14.9K

5.8K10

20

30

40

0

EnGinEERinG AnD ARCHitECtuRE

5.7%

BusinEss AnD COmmERCE

4.9%

OtHER OCCupAtiOns*

4.7%

LEGAL AnD CLAims sERViCEs

4.6%

sOCiAL sCiEnCEs AnD psYCHOLOGY

4.1%

inFORmAtiOn tECHnOLOGY

3.8%6,532 5,640 5,330 5,215 4,681 4,303

6,218 6,696 5,334 5,098 4,604 4,304

RACE AND ETHNICITY In fiscal 2013, employees of a minority racial or ethnic group accounted for a smaller percentage of separations from federal service (30.8 percent) than they made up in the overall workforce (35.0 percent).

PERCENT OF TOTAL FEDERAL WORKFORCE

PERCENT OF DEPARTURES

Employees under 30 accounted for 8.5 percent of departures, a sizable share since this group only represents 7.1 percent of the total federal workforce. Agencies will need to focus on retention strategies for this group of employees if they are to increase the representation of new, young talent in the federal workforce.

AGE

VETERAN STATUS

NON-VETERAN

VETERAN

VETERAN DEPARTURE TRENDS (2008–2012)

TOTAL FEDERAL WORKFO

RCE

31.7%

68.3%35+6535.4

64.6

VETERAN HIRES

VETERAN DEPARTURES

60

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

THOUSAND

39.4K

39.1K

Veterans have accounted for slightly more than one-third of all federal employees who have left the government since 2008. Despite this turnover rate, the number of veterans in the federal workforce has increased from 446,826 veterans in 2008 to 572,239 veterans in 2012, the most recent year for which complete departures data for veterans is available. This coincided with a 2009 presidential executive order to increase veterans’ employment.

Data Sources: Unless otherwise noted below, all data are from FedScope (fedscope.opm.gov) for all full-time, nonseasonal, permanent employees who left federal service during fiscal 2013.

Race and Ethnicity: U.S. Office of Personnel Management analysis of full-time, nonseasonal, permanent employees who left federal service during fiscal 2013.

Veteran Status: U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Employment of Veterans in the Federal Executive Branch: Fiscal Year 2012, (Washington, D.C., 2012), 7, 17.

Veteran Departure Trends and Years of Service: Partnership for Public Service analysis of the Central Personnel Data File (now called the EHRI-SDM) for full-time, nonseasonal, permanent employees who left federal service during fiscal 2008-2012 and during 2002-2012, respectively.

Historical Federal Workforce Tables: “Executive Branch Civilian Employment Since 1940,” U.S. Office of Personnel Management, http://1.usa.gov/1qUnFOQ (accessed Feb. 25, 2014).

*Includes positions that are not included in other white-collar occupational groups either because the duties are unique or because they do not align with one particular group.

FED FIGURES | FEDERAL DEPARTURES

PERCENT OF HIRES BY AGE

PERCENT OF DEPARTURES BY AGE

1.97.2

6.617.0

7.718.3

6.013.1

6.113.9

6.512.0

8.99.6

20.65.9

21.72.3

14.0

5 10 15 20 25

< 25

25-29

30-34

35-39

40-44

45-49

50-54

60-64

> 65

55-59

0.7

WHITE

BLACK OR AFRICAN AMERICAN

HISPANIC OR LATINO

ASIAN

AMERICAN INDIAN OR ALASKA NATIVE

MIXED RACE

NATIVE HAWAIIAN OR PACIFIC ISLANDER

10 20 30 40 50 6010203040506070

69.2

16.0

65.0

18.1

8.3

5.4

1.7

1.0

0.4

6.7

4.3

2.4

1.1

0.4

0

20

40

50

30

70

In analyzing data for federal departures, the Partnership finds:

• The number of departing employees has increased for most years since fiscal 2009.

• Retirements accounted for more than half of all separations from federal service in 2013 (61,953), although the number of retirements decreased last year by 4,306.

• Resignations continued to increase in 2013, constituting 34.5 percent of all departures. The number of employees who re-signed decreased in 2008 and 2009 during the worst years of the economic downturn, though more federal employees have quit each year since.

• Terminations or removals constituted only 8.4 percent of all de-partures in 2013. When placed in the context of government’s 1.8 million employees, only 0.5 percent of the total workforce was terminated or removed in 2013.

• While entry-level employees only made up 33.7 percent of the federal workforce, they accounted for 42.5 percent of depar-tures. In absolute numbers, the government hired roughly the same number of entry-level employees as it lost through depar-tures in 2013, though the high turnover among entry-level talent poses challenges as agencies cultivate talent pipelines.

PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SERVICE

The Partnership for Public Service is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to revitalize our federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve and by transforming the way government works. For further information about the Partnership, visit ourpublicservice.org.

GS LEVEL The General Schedule (GS) is a 15-level, government-wide pay and classification system used for the majority of the federal workforce. The largest number of employees who left federal service in 2013 were working at the GS-12 level, although entry-level employees made up a larger percentage of departures than they currently make up in the overall workforce—42.5 percent compared to 33.7 percent. Attrition rates were highest among the Senior Executive Service (SES) (11.3 percent) and among entry-level employees (7.6 percent).

MID LEVEL

ENTRY LEVEL

SES

SENIOR LEVEL

33.7

35.3

30.4

0.6

TOTAL FEDERAL WORKFORCE

GS 1-30.6%

GS 43.6% GS 5

8.6%

GS 67.3%

GS 154.3%GS 14

7.2%

GS 1313.6%

GS 1216.6%

GS 1113.3%

GS 101.4%

GS 99.3%

GS 83.8%

GS 79.3%

SES1.1%

PERCENT OF TOTAL WORKFORCE DEPARTURES BY GS LEVEL

42.5

31.3

25.1

ATTRITION RATE BY GS LEVEL (GROUPED)

1-9 10-12 13-15 SES

5

10 PERCENT

Predicting, preparing and managing these departures is critical to reshaping the federal workforce to meet evolving needs.

For more information and tips on how to examine turnover and re-tain employees, see “Beneath the Surface: Understanding Attrition at Your Agency and Why It Matters” and “Keeping Talent: Strategies for Retaining Valued Federal Employees.”

For further information on the federal workforce or recent federal hiring trends, see the Partnership’s “Federal Workforce” or “Federal Hiring” Fed Figures.

All are available at ourpublicservice.org/publications.