The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted updated numbers showing the headcount of employees at each agency. Note that these numbers do not tell the whole story. They don't account for part time employees nor for overtime. Overtime is a huge part of the story at Social Security. Here are Social Security's numbers as of March with earlier headcount numbers for comparison:
- March 2022, 59,257
- December, 2021 60,422
- September, 2021 59,808
- June 2021 59,707
- March 2021 60,675
- December 2020 61,816
- September 2020 61,447
- June 2020 60,515
- March 2020 60,659
- December 2019 61,969
- December 2018 62,946
- December 2017 62,777
- December 2016 63,364
- December 2015 65,518
- December 2014 65,430
- December 2013 61,957
- December 2012 64,538
- December 2010 70,270
- December 2009 67,486
- December 2008 63,733
They also don’t account for how many are trainees. So whatever the number of new hires was since 2020 - subtract those as well.
ReplyDeleteMy office is about 25% trainees.
DeleteThat's always been a factor but usually much lower trainee numbers and more long time employees that are able to train them.
September 2007- 64,407
ReplyDeleteSeptember 2006- 63,647
September 2005- 66,147
September 2004- 65,258
September 2003- 64,903
September 2002- 64,648
September 2001- 65,377
September 2000- 64,521
September 1999- 63,957
September 1998- 65,629
It's not just the lowest in over a decade. It's the lowest in at least 25 years. It's the lowest THIS CENTURY.
As of August 1, there are approximately 56,700 full-time employees and approximately 700 part-time employees. Total head count under 57,400!
ReplyDeleteIts okay, let them work from home and they will be so productive we will have zero backlog by the holidays, they all say they are umpty times more productive that way, even though every single metric showed otherwise, but I believe them!
ReplyDeleteWhere are you getting these metrics?
DeleteI recall some comments last month regarding staffing and the individual said that staffing didn’t matter, that good leadership could overcome any staffing shortage. Clearly someone who had never managed in a large dynamic organization. You can’t get something that isn’t there to be had. I get AFGE’s desire to work at home in perpetuity and the pre-COVID COSS overreaction by cancelling most telework. The agency is struggling. Make fun of leadership, but something needs to change. I am a proponent for more staffing, more in person training and mentoring particularly in operations where trainees are not getting it, and additional in person work. Not 100% but more than the agency is doing now. We are losing generations of trainees who normally would be the future of the agency for the next 20 years because of isolation and insufficient guidance. I have no skin in this game except angst at watching a fine agency struggle from the sidelines. This in my opinion is not because of incompetent leadership on the agency’s or labor organizations’ parts, more by failure to recognize the continued erosion of the agency’s ability to make change due to budget and calcified thinking about bringing staff onsite to insure the future.
ReplyDelete