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Federal employment

The Office of Personnel Management published 2,289,472 federal civilian employees across 52 states and territories as of March 1, 2025.

American Factbook Research

Where the work is

California employs more federal civilians than any other state, 182,276 of 2,289,472. By duty station, which is where the job is rather than where the employee lives. The District of Columbia is a state-level row here because OPM reports it as one.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management — OPM FedScope Employment Summary Data
The figures behind this chart
California employs more federal civilians than any other state, 182,276 of 2,289,472. By duty station, which is where the job is rather than where the employee lives. The District of Columbia is a state-level row here because OPM reports it as one.
StateValue
California182,276
Texas171,064
Virginia167,789
Maryland149,707
District of Columbia141,613
Florida117,353
Georgia90,219
Pennsylvania74,194
New York71,437
Washington64,218

The largest single employer is Veterans Health Administration with 420,521 people, and the largest occupational series is miscellaneous administration and program with 111,646. Full tables: by state, by agency, and by occupation.

What changed between the two published periods

Each FedScope release carries two periods, so this compares two figures OPM published rather than one of ours against a number we stored. Between September 1, 2024 and March 1, 2025, 4 states and territories grew and 48 shrank, for a net change of -23,744.

Change in federal civilian employment by state, September 1, 2024 to March 1, 2025
StateSeptember 1, 2024March 1, 2025Change
Connecticut7,7488,530+782
Texas170,400171,064+664
Florida117,052117,353+301
Georgia90,11290,219+107
Delaware4,3544,345-9
South Carolina27,61827,608-10
Kentucky26,58326,542-41
Alabama44,87544,822-53
Louisiana22,83022,772-58
North Dakota6,6786,609-69

What this data cannot show

  • OPM does not publish every federal employee. The intelligence community and some Department of Defense positions are excluded, so 2,289,472 is the workforce OPM publishes and not the federal workforce. An agency missing from these tables has not got no employees.
  • Average salary is an average over a group. It is not any person’s pay, and this is not a named-salary file.
  • Headcount counts employees rather than full-time equivalents, and it is a snapshot on the date of the release rather than an average over a period.
  • Employees are counted at their duty station, which is where the job is rather than where the employee lives.

Related

Sources

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