Federal Government Policy and Business

State Of The Federal Workforce: Low

NPR: The past year has been a tough one for the federal workforce. There was a hiring freeze at many agencies. For three days earlier this month, there was a government shutdown, leaving many workers to wonder when their next paycheck would arrive.

Now, as President Trump prepares his first State of the Union address, one issue he is expected to take up, if not there then in his soon-to-follow proposed budget for fiscal year 2019, is reorganizing the federal bureaucracy.

It's a prospect that many in the federal workforce are dreading.

Already, the state of the federal workforce is described as low. Morale "is the lowest that I have ever seen it in my just shy of 40 years" being a federal employee and working with federal employees, said J.David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents some 700,000 federal workers. Agencies, he says, are already short-staffed, with vacancies unfilled, and Cox worries pay will be frozen.

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