How does the U.S. federal workforce examine with these in different international locations?

President Trump and Elon Musk’s plans for a wholesale discount of the federal workforce have introduced turmoil to a sector lengthy seen as a bastion of stability. The Trump administration says extra cuts are coming, at the same time as some authorities businesses rush to reverse what they are saying had been mistaken layoffs. Employees are additionally difficult their terminations, discovering notable success.

The trouble raises hypothesis in regards to the administration’s targets, together with warnings in opposition to politicizing the U.S. civil service. Vital questions can inform that debate, similar to: How does the U.S. federal workforce examine with these of different international locations?

Is the U.S. authorities “bloated”?

Many requires shrinking the U.S. authorities cite “bloat” and extreme spending. However consultants say that whereas governments can at all times work to be extra environment friendly, the scale of america’ federal workforce is nicely according to these of its friends.

“The federal government is smaller proportionately than you would see in other countries” similar to Nice Britain, Canada or Australia, says Max Stier, president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on enhancing authorities.

That is partly as a result of the scale of the U.S. federal workforce hasn’t saved tempo with many years of inhabitants development.

“The head count today of the [U.S.] federal workforce is essentially the same as it was in 1969,” Stier says. “And that’s in absolute terms. In relative terms regarding the size of the population, it’s shrunk a lot — and the responsibilities of our government have increased.”

Within the late Sixties, the variety of federal employees hovered above 2 million (excluding Postal Service employees), in accordance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2025, the quantity stood at 2.4 million.

However there are a lot of extra Individuals to serve. In October 1969, the U.S. inhabitants was about 202.5 million, in accordance with the Census Bureau. Initially of 2025, it was estimated at 341.1 million, the bureau mentioned.

Federal employees accounted for 1.87% of the civilian workforce as of final November, in accordance with the Pew Analysis Middle — and that determine consists of greater than 600,000 postal employees.

By way of value, employees’ pay and advantages account for round 6% of federal spending, Elizabeth Linos, an affiliate professor of public coverage and administration at Harvard College’s Kennedy College of Authorities and director of The Folks Lab, advised NPR’s Contemporary Air.

Federal governments could be pretty small if states have relative autonomy in offering some authorities providers, as within the U.S. and Australia. That is considered one of many variables that may make it tough to immediately examine federal governments.

“The U.S. is a strongly federal system,” says Filipe Campante, a professor of political financial system and governance at Johns Hopkins College. “So there’s a lot more that falls under the responsibility of lower levels of government compared to more centralized countries, like France or the U.K.”

When trying on the U.S. public sector general — together with native, state and federal governments — these employees account for just below 15% of whole employment, in accordance with the 38-member Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD). That is under the 18% common for the international locations within the group, which includes primarily rich, developed nations.

One other distinction lies in what motivates U.S. federal employees. Greater than 90% of U.S. civil servants say it is necessary that their work contributes to the frequent good, in accordance with a 2023 OECD report. The determine was notably greater than these of their counterparts in Nice Britain and different international locations.

Nineties cuts introduced an “explosion” of contractors

So, how does the federal authorities present extra providers with out including workers? It pays personal contractors for providers and merchandise.

“In any given year, about $270 billion are spent on federal workers’ salaries and benefits,” Linos says. “Just to put that in perspective, there are specific departments whose contracting budget is larger than that budget.”

Within the 2023 fiscal yr, the federal authorities “committed about $759 billion on contracts,” the Authorities Accountability Workplace reported. Most of that determine — $478 billion — went towards shopping for “professional support services” for protection and civilian businesses, and $281 billion was for merchandise, from medication to airplanes. 

Federal contractors turned prevalent after the final large-scale effort to shed authorities jobs — the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Authorities initiative of the Nineties.

That overhaul occurred over seven years. Linos says that round “400,000 federal positions were cut through a combination of departures and attrition, and some layoffs.”

The top end result wasn’t precisely the lean federal authorities some had hoped for. The cuts introduced an “explosion” in contract employees, Linos says, including, “Today, we have something like three times as many [contractors] delivering the work of government” than federal employees.

Different international locations, like Australia, are in considerably related patterns, usually contracting or privatizing providers similar to utilities, medical care and little one care.

“We do a lot of that as you generally do in the U.S.,” says Andrew Podger, a professor on the Australian Nationwide College who can also be a fellow within the Nationwide Academy of Public Administration.

Political appointees are already an indicator of the U.S. 

Trump is seeking to reclassify 1000’s of influential federal jobs as political appointments — an thought he regularly talked about through the marketing campaign season.

Such a transfer would add to a obvious divide: The U.S. already makes use of political appointments to fill extra jobs than many international locations with related governments.

“We have an outsized number of political appointments,” Stier says, citing round 4,000 political appointees.

Among the many United States’ peer democracies, “they typically count their political appointees in tens, not in thousands,” he says. “So we really already have a vestige of the old spoils system.”

The U.S. has repeatedly labored to standardize civil service, from the Pendleton Act in 1883 to the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

“In the 19th century, the idea was you could get a job in government just by displaying loyalty to the new political administration,” Linos says. “And what that led to was lower levels of performance, less merit in government and, ultimately, worse outcomes for residents.”

However the hole persists. As proof, Campante of Johns Hopkins College suggests taking a look at how governmental transitions happen within the U.Okay. versus america.

“When they have an election, literally, pretty much like the day after, there is a transition in government” within the U.Okay., Campante says. “Basically the civil service remains in place.”

Each Stier and Campante see Trump’s push for extra appointments as a worrying signal, as a result of it could give the manager department tighter management over profession civil servants.

“We have too many already,” Stier says of political appointees. “The challenge there is that you wind up with people who frankly are not chosen on the basis of merit” however due to politics. That results in leaders not understanding the methods they oversee, which ends up in worse authorities, he says.

Then there’s the accountability problem

“I think that the politicization of the civil service is one of the key dramatic changes that are happening right now,” Campante says. “And that’s by [the Trump administration’s] own admission, right? It’s not even like a secret. They’re really kind of making the point that they think that that should be the case.”

Trump’s plan to switch tens of 1000’s of profession civil servants has been percolating for the reason that remaining months of his first time period, when he signed an government order saying he wanted extra flexibility and management in selecting employees he would depend on to enact his insurance policies. On Jan. 20, 2025, he reinstated the coverage, often known as “Schedule F,” saying it could “restore accountability to the career civil service.”

And in Trump’s Feb. 11 government order about reshaping the workforce by means of the Division of Authorities Effectivity, he set a aim of eliminating not solely waste but additionally “insularity.”

In Campante’s view, the president’s aim is “really to kind of reduce that independence and that insulation of the civil service from political control.”

He notes that in Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro now faces formal prices of making an attempt a coup to stay in energy after his 2022 election defeat. It is a distinction, Campante says, to how the U.S. dealt with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.

After taking workplace this yr, Trump issued pardons for lots of of violent rioters. His administration additionally dismissed greater than two dozen prosecutors who labored on Jan. 6 circumstances, and it launched an inquiry into FBI employees members concerned in Jan. 6 investigations.

To have the ability to maintain leaders accountable, Campante says, civil servants want protections from being fired and politically focused.

“That role of accountability is, I think, an important aspect that is being seriously degraded right now,” he says.

Stier says he has seen the identical sample when international locations transfer away from democracy and towards authoritarianism.

“One of the first moves is to change the civil service, the government workforce, to a loyalist workforce as opposed to a merit-driven workforce,” he says.