Last week, OPM published its 2005 edition of the Fact Book on the Federal civilian workforce which “contains statistics on employee demographics; compensation, payroll, and work years; performance management and the Senior Executive Service (SES); retirement and insurance programs; and student employment programs.”

In 2004, there were 2,713,200 federal employees (basically flat employment this decade). 767,700 of this group were US Postal Service employees (number of USPS employees down approximately 100,000 this decade). The average age of a federal employee was 46.8 in 2004 (vs. 46.3 in 2000) . (The average age of a FEHB enrollee is about ten years older because 1/2 of FEHBP enrollees are annuitants.) In 2004 56% of federal employees were men, and 44% were women (roughly the same gender mix over the past decade). 42% of federal employees had college degrees; 23% were veterans, and 5% were military retirees. The average base salary of a federal employee was $61,714; in the DC metro area, it was almost $80,000. 33% were white collar administrative; 24% were white collar professional; 32% were other white collar, and 11% were blue collar.

In 2004, 2,202,543 employees, 1,842,489 annuitants, and 4,006,295 dependents (est.) were enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). There were approximately 500,000 federal employees who were not enrolled in the FEHBP. The Fact Book indicates that there were 244,188 temporary federal employees (9% of the total workforce) who may not be eligible to enroll in the FEHBP. But it appears that approximately 10% of the federal workforce may have decided not to enroll in the FEHBP.

FEHBP premiums totalled $29,140,000,000 in 2004. This report is just chock full of fun facts to know and tell.OPM