Federal non-defense workforce to increase by 8 percent

After a decade of downsizing, the federal government will boost its non-defense workforce by 8 percent over the next two years, adding more than 85,000 workers to the rolls of civilian agencies.

At the same time, the Defense Department will continue to trim its civilian workforce, eliminating 22,000 jobs from the 2001 level-a 3.5 percent drop in its civilian ranks, according to President Bush's 2003 budget proposal.

Bush's proposal says the increase in the civilian workforce is a result of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Transportation Department will hire more than half of the new civilian workers, mostly at the new Transportation Security Administration. The Justice Department will add 17,000 workers to its payroll, an increase of 14 percent. Treasury will increase its ranks by 7,000 workers, a 5 percent hike.

In fact, every major civilian federal agency plans to increase or maintain the size of its workforce. Only Defense plans cuts. Factoring in these cuts, the federal civilian workforce will still be 3.6 percent larger in 2003 than in 2001.

The Sept. 11-related growth follows a decade of downsizing that saw the size of the federal workforce plummet by almost 430,000 positions from 1993 to 2000, a 20 percent drop. Almost 300,000 of those cuts came from the Defense Department.

Here is a rundown of major agencies' employment numbers from 2001 to 2003.

Federal Employment
(Civilian employees, in thousands)