The United States federal civil service is the civilian workforce (i.e., non-elected and non-military public sector employees) of the United States federal government's departments and agencies. The federal civil service was established in 1871 (5 U.S.C.§ 2101).[1] U.S. state and local government entities often have comparable civil service systems that are modeled on the national system to varying degrees.
There are three categories of U.S. federal employees:[5]
The competitive service includes the majority of civil service positions, meaning employees are selected based on merit after a competitive hiring process for positions that are open to all applicants.
The excepted service (also known as unclassified service) includes jobs with a streamlined hiring process, such as security and intelligence functions (e.g., the CIATooltip Central Intelligence Agency, FBITooltip Federal Bureau of Investigation, State Department, etc.), interns, foreign service professionals, doctors, lawyers, judges, and others. Agencies with excepted service authorities create their own hiring policies and are not subject to most appointment, pay, and classification laws.[6][7]
Hiring authorities
A hiring authority is the law, executive order, regulation that allows an agency to hire a person into the federal civil service. In fiscal year 2014, there were 105 hiring authorities in use. The following were the top 20 hiring authorities used that year, which accounted for 91% of new appointments:[8]
Description of the 20 hiring authorities most used in fiscal year 2014[8]
Hiring authority
Service type
Number
Description
Competitive examining
Competitive
44,612
Vacancies open to the public and posted on USAJobs. Applicants ranked and selections made by category rating. Veterans' preference applies
Department of Veterans Affairs, Title 38
Excepted
30,240
Exclusively for Veterans Affairs to hire certain medical occupations.
Schedule A: Agency-specific Authority
Excepted
11,220
Allows agencies to meet a hiring need that has not been remedied by using competitive examining, with justification and OPM approval.
Defense National Guard technician
Excepted
11,143
Unique non-Title 5 hiring authority used strictly for appointment of National Guard technicians. Appointees maintain a dual status as both a federal employee and state national guard member.
Veterans Employment Opportunities Act
Competitive
11,011
Allows eligible veterans to apply for positions announced under merit promotion procedures when an agency accepts applications from outside its own workforce.
Other law, executive order, or regulation
Both
10,745
Authorities granted by law, executive order, or regulation for which no specific OPM-designated hiring authority code exists.
Pathways internship
Excepted
8,862
Targets students at qualifying educational institutions. Interns eligible to be noncompetitively converted to competitive service under specified conditions.
Temporary appointment, based on prior temporary federal service
Competitive
8,344
Allows agencies to noncompetitively reappoint former temporary employees (who have not already served the maximum time allowed) and noncompetitively appoint others eligible for certain career conditional appointments.
Veterans recruitment appointment
Excepted
7,733
Allows agencies to appoint eligible veterans up to the GS-11 or equivalent level without regard to competitive examining procedures. Appointees are converted to competitive service appointments after 2 years of satisfactory service.
Alternative Personnel System, Department of Agriculture
Allows agencies to fill positions OPM has determined have a severe candidate shortage or a critical hiring need. Public notice is required but not the application of veterans' preference or applicant rating and ranking.
Reinstatement
Competitive
3,624
Allows former eligible federal employees to reenter the competitive service without competing with the public.
Pathways Recent Graduates
Excepted
2,845
Targets individuals who have recently received a degree or certificate from a qualifying institution. After completion, eligible for non-competitive conversions to competitive service under specified conditions.
Allows agencies to appoint persons with severe physical disabilities. Allows for non-competitive conversion to competitive service after 2 years of satisfactory service.
Department of Defense expedited hiring authority
Competitive
2,080
Allows DOD to hire qualified candidates for certain acquisition and health care occupations using direct-hire procedures where DOD has determined a shortage of candidates or critical hiring needs.
Demonstration Project, Defense Lab
Both
2,032
Allows DOD to hire science and technology personnel at Research Labs with modification or waiver of some Title 5 provisions.
Schedule A: Temporary, less-than-full time positions, critical need
Excepted
1,688
Allows managers to meet a short-term critical hiring need to fulfill the mission of an agency for up to 30-days with one 30-day extension.
Schedule A, attorneys
Excepted
1,627
Enables agencies to hire attorneys because OPM cannot develop qualification standards or examine for attorney positions by law.
The pay system of the United States government civil service has evolved into a complex set of pay systems that include principally the General Schedule (GS) for white-collar employees, Federal Wage System (FWS) for blue-collar employees, Senior Executive System (SES) for Executive-level employees, Foreign Service Schedule (FS) for members of the Foreign Service and more than twelve alternate pay systems that are referred to as alternate or experimental pay systems such as the first experimental system China Lake Demonstration Project. The current system began as the Classification Act of 1923[9] and was refined into law with the Classification Act of 1949. These acts that provide the foundation of the current system have been amended through executive orders and through published amendments in the Federal Register that sets for approved changes in the regulatory structure of the federal pay system. The common goal among all pay systems is to provide equitable salaries to all involved workers regardless of system, group or classification. This is referred to as pay equity or "equal pay for equal work". Select careers in high demand may be subject to a special rate table,[10] which can pay above the standard GS tables. These careers include certain engineering disciplines and patent examiners.[11][12]
All federal employees in the GS system receive a base pay that is adjusted for locality. Locality pay varies, but is at least 15.95% of base salary in all parts of the United States. The following salary ranges represent the lowest and highest possible amounts a person can earn in base salary, without earning overtime pay or receiving a merit-based bonus. Actual salary ranges differ adjusted for increased locality pay. As of March 2022[update], however, all base salaries lie within the parameters of the following ranges:
Pay grade
GS-1
GS-2
GS-3
GS-4
GS-5
GS-6
GS-7
GS-8
GS-9
GS-10
GS-11
GS-12
GS-13
GS-14
GS-15
Lowest step (1)
$21,986
$24,722
$26,975
$30,280
$33,878
$37,765
$41,966
$46,475
$51,332
$56,528
$62,107
$74,441
$88,520
$104,604
$123,041
Highest step (10)
$27,502
$31,114
$35,066
$39,361
$44,039
$49,096
$54,557
$60,416
$66,731
$73,484
$80,737
$96,770
$115,079
$135,987
$159,950
Nineteen percent of federal employees earned salaries of $100,000 or more in 2009. The average federal worker's pay was $71,208 compared with $40,331 in the private sector, although under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, most menial or lower paying jobs have been outsourced to private contractors.[13] In 2010, there were 82,034 workers, 3.9% of the federal workforce, making more than $150,000 annually, compared to 7,240 in 2005.[14] GS salaries are capped by law so that they do not exceed the salary for Executive Schedule IV positions.[15] The increase in civil servants making more than $150,000 resulted mainly from an increase in Executive Schedule salary approved during the Administration of George W. Bush, which raised the salary cap for senior GS employees slightly above the $150,000 threshold.[16]
As of March 2022[update], there are 392 federal agencies including 9 executive offices, 15 executive departments, 259 executive department sub-agencies and bureaus, 66 independent agencies, 42 boards, commissions, and committees, 11 quasi-official agencies.[18]
Employment by agency
Federal Government executive branch civilian employment, except U.S. Postal Service, fiscal year 2016[19] (Employment in thousands)
As of January 2009[update], about 2 million civilian workers were employed by the federal government; excluding, the postal service and defense.
The federal government is the nation's single largest employer. Although most federal agencies are based in the Washington, D.C. region, only about 16% (or about 288,000) of the federal government workforce is employed in this region.[20]
The federal service employed approximately 300 individuals by 1789. By the end of the 19th century, it had reached 208,000. As a consequence of the First World War, this number rose to 900,000. Between the wars, the workforce experienced fluctuations between 500 and 600,000. The one million mark was surpassed in the early 1940s, with a record 3.3 million people recorded as part of the federal civil service by 1945. This figure then receded to 2.1 million by October 1946.[21]
In the early 19th century, positions in the federal government were held at the pleasure of the president—a person could be fired at any time. The spoils system meant that jobs were used to support the American political parties, though this was gradually changed by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and subsequent laws. By 1909, almost two-thirds of the U.S. federal workforce was appointed based on merit, that is, qualifications measured by tests. Certain senior civil service positions, including some heads of diplomatic missions and executive agencies, are filled by political appointees. Under the Hatch Act of 1939, civil servants are not allowed to engage in political activities while performing their duties.[22] In some cases, an outgoing administration will give its political appointees positions with civil service protection in order to prevent them from being fired by the new administration; this is called "burrowing" in civil service jargon.[23]
U.S. Civil Service Commission
Public support in the United States for civil service reform strengthened following the assassination of President James Garfield.[24] The United States Civil Service Commission was created by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which was passed into law on January 16, 1883. The commission was created to administer the civil service of the United States federal government. The law required federal government employees to be selected through competitive exams and basis of merit.[24] It also prevented elected officials and political appointees from firing civil servants, removing civil servants from the influences of political patronage and partisan behavior.[24][25] However, the law did not apply to state and municipal governments.
This act abolished the United States Civil Service Commission and created the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). OPM primarily provides management guidance to the various agencies of the executive branch and issues regulations that control federal human resources. FLRA oversees the rights of federal employees to form collective bargaining units (unions) and to engage in collective bargaining with agencies. MSPB conducts studies of the federal civil service and mainly hears the appeals of federal employees who are disciplined or otherwise separated from their positions. This act was an effort to replace incompetent officials.[26][27]
Attempted reforms under the Trump administration
In May 2018, President Donald Trump signed three executive orders intended to crack down on unions that represent federal employees and to make it easier to fire federal workers.[28] It was claimed that the changes are designed to strengthen merit-system principles in the civil service and improve efficiency, transparency, and accountability in the federal government.[29][28] However, in August 2018, after reviewing the executive orders in detail, U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson temporarily[30] struck down most of the executive orders, ruling that they were an attempt to weaken federal labor unions representing federal employees.[31] Judge Jackson's ruling was reversed by the DC Circuit on jurisdiction grounds, saying the unions should first have complained to the Federal Labor Relations Authority.[32]
In October 2020, Trump signed an executive order that created a new category of federal employees, Schedule F, which included all career civil servants whose job includes "policymaking". Such employees would no longer be covered by civil service protections against arbitrary dismissal, but would be subject to the same rules as political appointees. The new description could be applied to thousands of nonpartisan experts such as scientists, who give advice to the political appointees who run their departments.[33] Heads of all federal agencies were ordered to report by January 19, 2021, a list of positions that could be reclassified as Schedule F. The Office of Management and Budget submitted a list in November that included 88 percent of the office's workforce.[34] Federal employee organizations and Congressional Democrats sought to overturn the order via lawsuits or bills. House Democrats warned in a letter that "The executive order could precipitate a mass exodus from the federal government at the end of every presidential administration, leaving federal agencies without deep institutional knowledge, expertise, experience, and the ability to develop and implement long-term policy strategies."[35] Observers predicted that Trump could use the new rule to implement a "massive government purge on his way out the door".[36] Schedule F was eliminated by President Joe Biden on 22, January 2021, nullifying the personnel changes.[37]
Civil servants in literature
Bromell, Henry (2001). Little America: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN978-0-525-10425-4. A State Department employee's son reconstructs a childhood in a fictional Middle Eastern country
Bushell, Agnes (1997). The enumerator. London: Serpent's Tail. ISBN978-1-85242-554-8. A novel about a public health contractor in San Francisco
Costello, Mark (2002). Big If. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN978-0-393-05116-2. A novel of life in the Secret Service
Keeley, Edmund (1985). A Wilderness Called Peace. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN978-0-671-47416-4. A novel of a diplomat's son in Cambodia
^"The Federal Civil Service". DOI University, National Business Center, U.S. Department of the Interior. 1998. Archived from the original on October 18, 2009. Retrieved August 31, 2009.
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