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Current analysis and historical data snapshots built from federal job announcements, OPM workforce records, and reviewed public evidence.
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Current analysis
Current investigations, workforce analysis, and practical federal hiring research built from reviewed public evidence.
Data investigations
Wage and Hour retained consequential enforcement results as investigator ranks fell 36% from their 2012 peak and its newer-tenure bench thinned sharply.
Current research
Data investigations
EEOC's private charge throughput held up as covered employment fell 21%, but its federal hearings docket rose while available judges declined.
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Data investigations
Covered CFPB employment fell 38.2% while complaint intake reached 6.6 million and leadership narrowed supervision and enforcement priorities.
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Data investigations
Covered FDIC headcount fell 23.6%, including 600 bank examiners, while the insured system grew larger and more concentrated.
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Data investigations
Recruiting rebounded, but cutter vacancies widened and covered civilian employment fell 9.9% as Force Design accelerated.
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Data investigations
Indian Affairs cut 846 payroll employees in six months, while education, realty and support occupations contracted and the FY2027 request points lower.
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Data investigations
NRC's two largest engineering series recorded 215 separations and 17 accessions in 2025 as advanced-reactor applications and engagements expanded.
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Data investigations
DCSA recovered to more than 4,600 contractor security reviews and expanded mission staffing, but its last published requirement denominator still showed 37.6% coverage.
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Data investigations
DOT&E entered 2026 with 45 authorized civilian positions and 173 systems under oversight as remaining Action Officers reported capacity and expertise gaps.
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Data investigations
Education rescinded its Office for Civil Rights RIF, but OPM data show the component had 298 fewer covered employees by June 2026 as complaint timeliness worsened.
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Data investigations
The SEC had 885 fewer covered employees in June 2026 than in January 2025, while the tenure group containing conditional and trial appointments fell 78.2%.
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Data investigations
NOAA's covered workforce fell 21.1% from December 2024 through June 2026, with broad losses across science and technical occupations and only selective rebuilding.
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Data investigations
Puerto Rico's cargo system relied on three federal inspection missions with different hours and staffing constraints, while public data could not show the full airport-level gap.
Current research
Data investigations
VA expanded HUD-VASH staffing and vouchers, but 584 case-manager positions were vacant and most nonreferrals had no documented explanation.
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Data investigations
TSA added aviation cybersecurity requirements as its broad inspection and compliance workforce contracted and its public cyber role map remained outdated.
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Data investigations
FAA says current electric-aircraft projects remain supported, but two certification branches reported an eight-position specialty gap as a selected technical workforce fell 7.3%.
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Data investigations
NSF received 43,532 competitive proposals in fiscal 2025 as its covered federal workforce fell by 615 employees from December 2024 through June 2026.
Current research
Data investigations
Most IRS AI use cases were still in development as a selected technical-workforce proxy fell by 2,459 employees from January 2025 through June 2026.
Current research
Data investigations
Across 11 selected agencies, the conditional workforce fell by 101,314 employees in 2025 even though most recorded separations were classified as voluntary.
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Data investigations
VA's oldest claims backlog has fallen even as its covered claims-examining workforce declined 14% from September 2024 through June 2026.
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Data investigations
EPA entered years of post-award monitoring with $10.2 billion in unaffected IRA obligations and 4,326 fewer covered employees than in September 2024.
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Data investigations
Federal Student Aid stopped two contractor-oversight checks as its covered workforce fell by nearly half while the loan portfolio reached $1.724 trillion.
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Data investigations
The July jobs report revised May and June payrolls down by 103,000. Revisions are normal, but BLS is now producing key labor statistics with a much smaller workforce.
Current research
Data investigations
Federal hiring averaged about 101 days through entry on duty. The government's renewed 80-day goal stops at the initial offer, changing the clock applicants see.
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Data investigations
NNSA mapped 46 science-facility investments through 2045, but the workforce analysis needed to operate old facilities while building new ones is still unfinished.
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Data investigations
Commerce's semiconductor awards have become a years-long monitoring operation, but the program office entered that phase after losing more than half its employees.
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Data investigations
State rebuilt passport staffing and processed record demand after the 2023 crisis, but key measures of durable surge capacity remain unpublished.
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Data investigations
Secret Service headcount grew 5.6% after June 2024, but the current protective-training rate and revised staffing requirement remain undisclosed.
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Data investigations
Timber sales rose 29% through June, but nine occupations needed to plan, contract and oversee forest projects had 1,445 fewer employees than in 2024.
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Data investigations
The last verified federal count found 69 meteorologists in a 90-position aviation-weather design. Public records show recruiting in 2026, but not a verified recovery.
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Data investigations
DOD's reported repair backlog rose 80.8% after inflation while a selected civilian facilities-and-trades workforce proxy fell 11.4% after January 2025.
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Data investigations
NASA lost more than 4,000 civil servants before directing its centers to restore in-house engineering, operations and science capability.
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Data investigations
The first major 2030 field test shrank from six sites to two and from 1,247 planned workers to 112 while a bureau-wide skills assessment remained paused.
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Data investigations
OPM recorded 10,030 new-hire actions during ICE's surge, but tentative offers were not final hires and covered employment had receded by June.
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Data investigations
Receipts exceeded completions by 929,000 in the first half of fiscal 2026 as covered employment remained 11% below its January 2025 peak.
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Data investigations
A GAO review found 13,509 assignments against 18,002 documented requirements as the service planned to double personnel without a complete workforce ledger.
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Data investigations
DOD coded 19,379 positions across nine functions, but its qualifications, assignments and tenure system remains unfinished as reform teams work around vacancies.
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Data investigations
Anniston and Red River added 241 contractor personnel, but skills gaps, vehicle condition, parts, drawings and old machinery complicated billions in repair work.
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Data investigations
Aggregate staffing looked healthy, but bottleneck skills, unplanned work and revised completion targets concealed a much more complicated maintenance problem.
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Data investigations
EOIR's record judge class added capacity, but a far steeper decline in incoming cases changed the arithmetic behind the shrinking pending docket.
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Data investigations
CBP authorized a larger northern Border Patrol workforce, but onboard agents fell and support positions remained unfilled as one sector drove the 2024 encounter surge.
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Data investigations
FDA's drug-inspection recovery stalled below its 2019 level as hiring merely matched losses and experience gaps constrained foreign work.
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Data investigations
IHS launched against severe provider vacancies, but covered employment fell 458 from January through June and the campaign still lacks a public numeric target.
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Data investigations
The unexamined utility, plant and reissue queue fell 78,515 applications from its January 2025 peak, but attrition absorbed most gross hiring and total pendency worsened.
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Data investigations
The covered workforce grew far faster than the documented federal-state inspector pool, while recent federal staffing and inspection activity also declined.
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Data investigations
The identifiable GS-1109 workforce fell 28% after December 2024, but the government still cannot count everyone responsible for its grant portfolio.
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Data investigations
Federal purchasing nearly doubled in real terms while the dedicated contracting workforce grew half as much, then contracted sharply after 2024.
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Data investigations
The reserve is historically thin, but inventory alone misses America's larger production base, aging delivery system and incomplete public refill ledger.
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Data investigations
DOE's nuclear-cleanup office lost one-third of its federal staff in two years while engineering, contracting and safety-related vacancies widened.
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Data investigations
VA's health workforce contracted after late 2024 even as patient, visit and community-care demands remained large. The losses reached clinical and coordinating roles.
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Data investigations
The park system still builds a summer workforce, but same-month OPM data show a thinner permanent base beneath 323 million annual visits.
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Data investigations
BOP staffing has begun a small rebound, but the officer corps remains thinner and the last public operational measures show rising overtime and augmentation.
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Data investigations
The 2025 reduction reached IT, contracting, engineering, logistics and weapons testing. Public records do not show a clean transfer of the work or its full cost.
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Data investigations
Interior built a new wildland fire service, but the Forest Service has not joined it. Federal records show the 2026 staffing rebound came entirely from nonpermanent appointments.
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Data investigations
The federal government's HR agency now has fewer employees than at any reviewed point since 1998 while directing agencies to rebuild hiring and workforce planning.
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Data investigations
Under-30 hires already topped one-third of external federal hiring in fiscal 2024 and 2025, but OPM's new target uses a broader unpublished numerator.
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Data investigations
GSA is still selling property, but GAO found restarted projects, fewer appraisers and no reliable measure of whether the accelerated program is actually faster.
Current research
Data investigations
Employees showed interest in the federal cyber rotation program. Home-agency approval, unreimbursed staffing costs and senior qualification demands narrowed the path.
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Data investigations
FAA has abundant applicant interest, but its audited funnel reaches only 2,610 Academy graduates before years of facility training. The binding constraint is certification capacity.
Current research
Data investigations
Social Security added 25 million beneficiaries while losing 9,600 full-time permanent workers. Recent service gains show what technology changed—and what a thinner workforce still risks.
Current research
Data investigations
FederalHiringData finds a 12.4% workforce contraction and an estimated $22.8 billion decline in annualized basic-pay cost, while the public savings ledger remains incomplete.
Current research
Pay and benefits
Consumer prices rose 27.7% from January 2021 through July 2026 while the GS base schedule rose 14.4%. Locality pay narrowed, but did not erase, the loss in scheduled purchasing power.
Current research
Data investigations
The U.S. defense presence in South Korea includes 2,903 appropriated-fund civilians, while 12,428 archived job announcements reveal the year-round system behind the alliance.
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Data investigations
The carrier's deployment has outlasted its published maintenance calendar. More than 25,000 archived Navy job announcements show the shore-side labor system around its homeport.
Current research
Data investigations
The IRS had 29,663 fewer covered civilian employees in June 2026 than in January 2025. GAO says workforce-planning gaps and post-filing pressures pose risks to future operations.
Current research
Pay and benefits
TSP loan use reached 9.5% of active FERS participants and hardship-withdrawal use reached 4.9%, even as participation, deferrals and account balances also increased.
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Data investigations
The federal FOIA backlog rose 27% in fiscal 2025. DHS held 168,505 pending requests while request volume grew and two different public staffing measures moved downward.
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Data investigations
FEMA had 5,793 fewer covered civilian employees in June 2026 than in January 2025. GAO says the agency cut staff without the workforce planning needed to assess mission capacity.
Current research
Workforce trends
OPM data record 390,934 federal separation actions in 2025. Retirements accounted for 150,299, while quits remained the largest single category.
Current research
Work arrangements
Only 142 of 93,496 analyzed 2026 announcements were confirmed remote. Another 12,860 were telework eligible but not remote.
Current research
Career paths
The USAJOBS archive contains 612,439 public announcements whose advertised GS range began at GS-7 or below, led by clerical and health-support series.
Current research
Occupation guides
A March 2017-August 2026 archive shows where 12,376 Criminal Investigation series announcements appeared, what they paid and how often 2026 records named a clearance level.
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Hiring requirements
Among 93,496 analyzed 2026 announcements, 21,360 named Confidential, Secret, Top Secret or Top Secret/SCI. Unknown values remain separate.
Current research
Hiring process
Across 3,085,636 announcements, the median application window was 14 days and 566,705 closed within a week.
Current research
Occupation guides
The archive contains 120,410 Information Technology Management announcements, with a $122,683 median advertised annual maximum among valid salary ranges.
Current research
Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Agencies
Across a bounded 28-agency sample, contract-obligation growth and covered headcount growth had only a 0.169 correlation; five agencies increased obligations while headcount fell.
Current research
Data investigations
Some non-emergency U.S. personnel had already been relocated. A 2025 inspection documented 108 authorized U.S. direct-hire positions, while current public personnel data captures only a fraction.
Current research
Hiring process
Engineering, IT and contracting led a conservative cohort of USAJOBS announcements with Direct Hire in the title. A 14-day median application window still does not measure selection speed.
Current research
Federal workforce
OPM data available by July 15 showed federal civilian employment still far below late-2024 levels, with accessions lagging separations across much of 2025.
Current research
Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Locations
Federal Hiring Data tracks active and historical USAJOBS announcements. Current data shows relevant defense, logistics, clearance and Gulf-location signals, but not enough evidence yet to prove a broad war-driven hiring shift.
Current research
Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Locations
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act shows how Article I can let a bill become law without a presidential signature, while Federal Hiring Data shows where housing-related federal capacity appears in job announcements.
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Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Occupations
Veterans Health Administration, nurse roles, medical officers, and other clinical and support occupations drove the strongest healthcare signal in the early January archive.
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Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Remote work
Veterans Health Administration stayed dominant, nurse and medical roles strengthened, and remote-work signals remained too sparse for a public trend claim.
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Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Pay & salary
Medical, dental, legal, and air traffic control roles showed the highest normalized salary maximums in the first week of January 2026.
Current research
Federal Hiring Data
Research article
Agencies
Veterans Health Administration, Bureau of Prisons, Navy installation commands, Guard units, parks, and aviation agencies led announcement volume in the first week of January 2026.
Current research
Historical research
These pieces reconstruct what federal hiring and workforce data showed at a prior point in time. They remain available for research without being presented as current reporting.
Occupations
Q1 announcement volume was 6.7% lower in 2026 than in 2025, but nurse and medical officer postings rose while several administrative and IT series declined.
Historical research
Locations
Japan and Germany were the most frequent country signals among 4,715 federal announcements with international locations closing from April through November 2025.
Historical research
Hiring process
Among 95,843 announcements closing from April through November 2025, 55.4% named the public and 39.9% named internal agency candidates, with substantial overlap among eligibility paths.
Historical research
Hiring process
A two-page resume transition concentrated 4,412 announcement closings on Sept. 26, followed by an abrupt weekend drop and a slower fall period shaped by a government shutdown.
Historical research
Agencies
More than 81,000 federal job announcements closed from April through September 2025, showing continued advertised activity during a freeze that included exceptions and agency-specific implementation.
Historical research
Agencies
Bureau of Prisons, Customs and Border Protection, FEMA, TSA, FAA and Coast Guard all appeared in the March 2025 top-agency archive.
Historical research
Occupations
March 2025 federal announcement volume fell from February, but VHA grew as a share of the archive and Nurse became the top occupational series.
Historical research
Locations
California appeared in 2,706 February 2025 federal announcement location records, ahead of Virginia, Texas and Florida in the historical archive.
Historical research
Pay & salary
Information Technology Management, series 2210, ranked fourth in February 2025 announcement volume and averaged about $142,425 in normalized salary maximums.
Historical research
Pay & salary
Nurse was the second-largest occupational series in the February 2025 archive, while Medical Officer postings carried the highest average salary ceilings among large series.
Historical research
Federal hiring
About 74.9 percent of February 2025 federal announcements in the archive closed within 14 days, reinforcing how quickly many USAJOBS postings moved.
Historical research
Agencies
The February 2025 historical archive contained 18,991 USAJOBS announcements, with Veterans Health Administration and defense agencies forming the largest visible hiring signals.
Historical research
Agencies
A FederalHiringData archive reconstruction found 24,256 USAJOBS announcements closing in January 2025, led by 4,193 Veterans Health Administration postings.
Historical research
Occupations
By Jan. 24, 2025, the FederalHiringData archive showed administrative, management-analysis, IT and nursing series at the top of federal announcement volume.
Historical research
Locations
A Jan. 22 archive snapshot found most federal announcements named one advertised location, while a small set of broad postings listed many places.
Historical research
Federal hiring
A Jan. 17 snapshot shows a median federal announcement duration of 13 days, with about 62.8 percent closing within two weeks.
Historical research
Pay & salary
Early January 2025 salary records showed Medical Officer announcements with the highest average salary ceilings among sizable federal occupation series.
Historical research
Federal Hiring Data Weekly
Subscribe to Federal Hiring Data Weekly for federal hiring trends, salary data, agency movements, and original investigations, with email confirmation before delivery.
Editorial theme
Use snapshot comparisons and recent imports to explain which departments are expanding their hiring footprint and why.
Editorial theme
Combine occupation metadata, closing windows, and compensation ranges to identify pressure points in federal recruiting.
Editorial theme
Analyze which locations dominate posted openings, where remote work is available, and how that changes across agencies and occupations.
