Federal Workforce
NAVAPD, like many VA employees, is concerned about the current climate across the Federal Government of terminations and deferred resignations.
The NAVAPD Board would like to stress to our members that:
We know you are doing an excellent job taking care of veterans.
We know that your clinics are understaffed, overworked, not resourced correctly and many do not have local leadership support to increase the workforce.
We also understand that the message being portrayed out of Washington DC is that the Federal workforce is bloated, underperforming, and lazy. NAVAPD could not disagree more.
The most recent report from the Office of Workforce Staffing clearly shows that physicians are the #1 top clinical provider that is understaffed nationwide. This is followed by an understaffing of nurses. Their report also shows that VA has better retention of various clinical occupations when compared to the private sector. NAVAPD recognizes this is due in large part to the dedication of our members to veteran healthcare. The recently published NSI survey shows that between CY 2019 to CY 2023 the average RN turnover was 20.5% when compared to the average VA RN turnover of 10.9%. The national average of RN turnover was 18.4%. There is no doubt that this clearly shows NAVAPD member’s dedication to VA’s mission. The full report can be found here : NSI_National_Health_Care_Retention_Report.pdf
NAVAPD did some research and found that there are 1,869,986 federal employees as of November 2024. This is based on data from OPM. This number of Federal Employees is of Non-Postal, Non-Seasonal, Full Time Permanent Employees across all Federal Agencies. This is compared to the number of full-time employees in the United States which number at approximately 134,150, 000 as of October 2024.
Simple math will show that 1.4% of the total United States workforce is made up of Federal Employees. If we were to add in Postal employees, that will bring the entire Federal Workforce up to approximately 3,000,000. This only brings the Federal workforce to approximately 2.1% of the entire workforce in the US. Compare this the other large employers such as Walmart with 2.1 million employees and Amazon which globally has approximately 1.56 million employees.
The Pew Research Center did a study and found that of the Federal Agencies, VA has the largest number of employees topping out at approximately 486,522. Department of Defense is larger than VA when viewed as a whole, but most data have the DOD broken is separate workforces of: Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, Department of the Air Force and Department of Defense (Pentagon). They also discovered that 16% of the federal workforce serve in health-related occupations, the most common occupation being nursing. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/07/what-the-data-says-about-federal-workers/
In the Federal workforce there are two types of positions (outside Senior Executive Service). Those positions are “Competitive Service” and “Excepted Service”. In competitive service, employees must go through a competitive hiring process which is open to all applicants. The process may include written testing or other evaluations of education and experience. Excepted Service positions have been exempted from the regular hiring rules due to specific skill sets where it is considered impractical to examine applicants. Physicians and Dentists generally fall under Excepted Service. Policy, Data, Oversight - OPM.gov
About two-thirds of federal workers (1.5 million, or 67.3%) are in the competitive service. Competitive service employees are more difficult to discipline or terminate, except for cause. Excepted Service employees have a probationary period of two years making it easier to discipline or terminate them.
The Pew Group also asked Americans their view on the departments of the Federal Government, and if they have a more favorable or less favorable opinion of the employees in those departments. Not surprisingly, VA fare very well. In that survey, only 29% of Americans view VA employees in an unfavorable light versus over 52% who viewed VA employees very favorably. The Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute reported that VA surveyed nearly 40,000 veterans in early 2024. VA asked the question where the veteran “trust[s] VA to fulfill our country’s commitment to veterans”. 81% of veterans answered “Yes” up 25% since 2016.
NAVAPD wants to remind you what you do matters. Our member physicians and dentists’ matter. You are making a difference and bettering the health of the nation’s veterans. Please contact your Congressional Leaders and make your voice heard. Use the data available from multiple sources outside and within VA to show Congress that VA healthcare and those who provide it need their protection.
NAVAPD thanks you for everything you do each day improving veterans’ health.