Public servants twice over: Veterans in the federal workforce
As the current administration reshapes the federal workforce as we know it, one population stands to be uniquely impacted: military veterans.
For example, reduced staffing and any resulting slowdowns in service delivery at the Department of Veterans Affairs would impact veterans’ ability to access the health care, benefits and resources they need.
Americans also may not be aware that the federal workforce is disproportionately composed of veterans, exposing the veteran community to significant risk in the case of mass layoffs. In fact, nearly 30% of all federal employees are military veterans.
Veterans are employed across the government
Veterans occupy positions across the entire federal government, not just in defense- and military-related agencies.
While the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have the most veterans—employing more than 435,000 in total—this group is a critical component of every federal agency’s workforce.
Other top employers of veterans by percentage include the Department of Transportation (34.6% veterans), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (27.9%) and the General Services Administration (26.5%).
The federal government is the country’s most important employer of veterans
Under the Veterans Preference Act of 1944, veterans receive “veterans’ preference” in federal hiring. This long-standing practice, dating back to the Civil War, acknowledges veterans’ sacrifices and helps returning service members find stable employment. Veterans’ preference makes veterans more likely to be hired and less likely to be fired than their nonveteran counterparts.
The federal government is the largest single employer of veterans in the country. In fact, the federal government by itself employs as many veterans as entire industries in the private sector. In 2023, 11.0% of all employed veterans worked for the federal government, comparable to the percentage employed in manufacturing jobs—11.7% of employed veterans—or in professional or business services—11.1% of such veterans.
Veterans with a service-connected disability are especially likely to be federal employees. In 2023, 19.0% of all employed veterans in this group worked for the federal government.
The federal government employs veterans nationwide, not just in Washington, D.C.
Most of the country’s federal employees—just over 80%—work outside the D.C. area (Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland). For federally employed veterans, this figure is 83%. The federal government employs veterans in every state, particularly in high-population states like Texas, California and Florida.
Conclusion
For practical and ethical reasons, it is critical to recognize the role that veterans play in the federal workforce. As the veterans’ advocacy group Veterans of Foreign Wars suggested in its recent call to pause the mass firing of probationary federal employees, “There are bigger ramifications in firing veterans than just faceless workers being let go.”
The federal workforce is a major source of employment for American service members—and a repository of nonpartisan technical and administrative expertise that ensures a continuity of government across administrations. The professional civil service is the engine of our government—and veterans help ensure it works. They—and the workforce as a whole—should be handled with care.
Unless otherwise noted, data in this analysis is for full-time, nonseasonal, permanent civilian employees of the executive branch as of September 2024. It does not include most employees of the legislative or judicial branches; the intelligence community; the U.S. Postal Service, foreign service officers; residents of other countries employed by State Department offices overseas; uniformed military personnel; or contractors working for the government.
The word “veteran,” as used by OPM, refers to former service members who qualify for veteran status under 38 U.S.C. 101. There may be former service members who do not meet the definition and who are thus not captured in the data. “Exempt” is an
For more data about the composition and performance of the federal workforce, see our Agency Performance Dashboards here.
