FOR DECEMBER 1941 FEDERAL PERSONNEL BY TYPES OF WORK By KATHRYN R. MURPHY, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and MELTON M. GORDON, Civil Summary THE national defense program has resulted not only in large increases in Federal personnel but also in marked shifts in the proportions of workers engaged in the various functions performed by the Federal Government. National defense activities 2 which in June 1940 accounted for 47 percent of the total Federal personnel-both civil and military-accounted for 73 percent of the total in June 1941. The major part of this increase was in the armed services which comprised 56 percent of the total in June 1941 as contrasted with only 32 percent a year earlier. Although the proportion of the Federal personnel engaged in all governmental functions other than those which exist for national defense decreased from 53 percent in June 1940 to 27 percent in June 1941, the actual number of such workers rose 7 percent. A large part of this expansion was to service the needs of the defense agencies. The nondefense employees have been classified into 15 major groups according to type of work performed. The largest proportionate increase in personnel among the 15 groups was in law enforcement, which had 48 percent more workers in June 1941 than in the previous June. Employment also increased in public works, education and reference services, labor and industrial relations, general government, regulatory services, health, other public service enterprises, the Postal Service, and industrial and commercial development. On the other hand, the number of employees in general information and research, 1 Prepared under the direction of Herman B. Byer, chief of the Division of Construction and Public Employment, United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Archie C. Edwards, chief of the Statistical Division, United States Civil Service Commission; Carol P. Brainerd, director of the State, County, and Municipal Survey, acted as consultant on the functional classification. 'National defense activities in this classification cover the armed services (1. e., the Army, including "selectees," Navy. and Coast Guard), all civilian offices of the Navy and War Departments except the Corps of Engineers of the War Department, the Office for Emergency Management, the Petroleum Coordinator for National Defense, the Selective Service System, the Special Defense Unit of the Department of Justice, the Veterans Administration, and the American Battle Monuments Commission. agriculture, welfare, Indian affairs, and conservation and development, was reduced between June 1940 and June 1941. The combined effect of increases of 7 percent in employees engaged in activities other than national defense, of 127 percent in civilian employees in national defense activities, and of 267 percent in the personnel of the armed services was to increase the total number of persons in the civilian and military services of the Federal Government from 1,496,000 in June 1940 to 3,119,000 in June 1941. Over the same period, total monthly pay rolls rose from $184,863,000 to $312,583,000. Scope and Method of Study This article, which was prepared jointly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Civil Service Commission, is a continuation of an analysis of Federal personnel by types of work performed which appeared in the June 1941 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. It contains a functional distribution of Federal personnel and pay rolls in June 1940 and 1941 3 as well as some comparisons with data previously published for December 1939 and 1940. Personnel and pay rolls of the executive, legislative, judicial, and military branches of the Federal Government have been analyzed in the accompanying tabulations. Part-time, temporary, and forceaccount workers, and consultants on a fee basis, as well as full-time employees, have been included if they were on the pay roll with pay during the periods specified. Only the regular employees of such agencies as the Work Projects Administration, National Youth Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps have been included. "Dollar-a-year" men and employees who receive no compensation have not been included. Employment and pay-roll data for all workers in the executive branch, except force-account workers, were obtained from the monthly reports submitted by the various departments and independent agencies to the Civil Service Commission. Similar information for The information for June 1940 represents the results of numerous revisions as more complete reports have been received. It may be regarded, therefore, as less subject to change than that for June 1941, for which final figures were not available in all instances when these tabulations were made. The functional classification has been made on the basis of the usual, as contrasted to the emergency, activities of the governmental units reporting. Personnel and pay rolls for each unit included in the functional distribution will be published in the Bureau's Serial No. R. 1408. In this connection, it should be pointed out that the summary character of the reports submitted by the departments and agencies each month to the Civil Service Commission and the Bureau of Labor Statistics has imposed definite limitations on the preciseness of the functional distribution. Since the functional distribution is a byproduct of reports which are collected primarily to provide a count of personnel and a total of pay rolls in the Federal Government each month, it is in terms of the organizational unit for which the department or agency reports employment and pay rolls. In some instances, where the unit is engaged in more than one activity, it was necessary to allocate the entire unit arbitrarily to a single category in the distribution. A more complete explanation of the basis for the functional grouping is contained in the earlier article. For example, enrolled personnel of the Civilian Conservation Corps and work-relief personnel of the National Youth Administration and Work Projects Administration have not been included. 5 This group includes employees who are empowered to exercise certain authority or who possess certain privileges as representatives of the Federal Government, although they receive no salary. force-account employees and for the personnel of the legislative, judicial, and military branches of the Federal Government was obtained from monthly reports made by the various departments and agencies to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The pay-roll figures represent the total wage and salary expenditures of the various agencies and departments during the entire month of June in both years. The employment figures, on the other hand, show the number of employees on the pay roll with pay during a single pay period of the month. For practically all employees the figures are for the last pay period in the month, but for some of the forceaccount employees the reports are as of the middle of the month. Major Functional Groups Civilian employees of the Federal Government increased 35 percent between June 1940 and June 1941. With new workers being taken on at the rate of 30,000 per month, the total had risen to 1,379,000 in June 1941. The percentage increase in pay rolls was slightly more than that in employment, the total monthly pay roll of $207,562,000 in June 1941 being 37 percent above that for June 1940. Intensified national defense activities caused by far the largest share of the increases. Added civilian workers in agencies engaged primarily in national defense work accounted for 298,500 of the net increase of 356,000 civilian employees between June 1940 and June 1941. The expansion in civilian employment was small, however, in comparison with the rapid growth in the armed services. Largely as a result of the enactment of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, the number of persons in the military branch of the United States Government increased from 474,000 in June 1940 to 1,740,000 in June 1941, or 267 percent. The corresponding rise in pay rolls was 211 percent. The disparity between the increase in military personnel and that in pay rolls is explained by the large numbers of men who have been enrolled in the Army in recent months with the base pay of $21 a month. The combined effect of the increases in civilian and military personnel was to raise the total number of persons in the Federal service in June 1941 to 3,119,000, for whom the monthly pay roll was $312,583,000. These figures represented increases of 108 and 69 percent, respectively, over corresponding totals for June 1940. Although national defense activities accounted for the major increases in Federal personnel and pay roll during the 12 months ending with June 1941, other Federal activities showed a net gain of 7 percent in employment and of 9 percent in pay rolls. These activities have been classified into 15 major functional groups in table 1. TABLE 1.-Personnel and Pay Rolls in Federal Civilian and Military Services, by Major Function, June 1940 and June 1941 Law enforcement showed the largest proportionate increases in both employment and pay rolls between June 1940 and 1941, with gains of 48 and 50 percent, respectively. Of the law-enforcement units, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported the greatest expansion in personnel. In recent months the FBI has had the added duties of making surveys of the facilities of plants having Army and Navy contracts, surveys for the Army and Navy at arsenals and navy yards, and investigations requested under the Selective Training and Service Act. Substantial additions were also made to the staff of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as a result of the increased volume of applications for naturalization, and the intensification of the border-patrol work. Registering and fingerprinting all aliens, as provided under the Alien Registration Act approved June 28, 1940, also added to the personnel engaged in law enforcement. Although public works showed a slightly lower percentage increase in employment than did law enforcement, it was responsible for the largest absolute increase in the number of workers. A net addition of 35,000 workers resulted in increases of 45 percent in employment and of 30 percent in pay rolls between June 1940 and June 1941. In general, employment and pay rolls for public works are subject to wide fluctuations because of the inclusion of large numbers of force-account workers who are hired on a per diem or hourly basis for a specific construction or repair job which an agency does itself instead of contracting for it. The Panama Canal alone reported almost 15,000 more force-account workers in June 1941 than in June 1940, and the Tennessee Valley Authority reported an increase of nearly 9,000. Another group, under public works, having a large increase in personnel was the Corps of Engineers of the War Department, which added more than 15,000 employees between June 1940 and June 1941. A large part of this increase resulted from the assignment of construction work at the Air Corps establishments and at the recently acquired Atlantic bases to the Corps of Engineers. 7 Increases in employment in 8 other functional groups varied from less than 1 percent for industrial and commercial development to 29 percent for education and reference. Pay rolls for industrial and commercial development decreased slightly, but for most of the other groups pay-roll increases between June 1940 and June 1941 closely paralleled gains in employment. The widest disparity was in other public service enterprises which had a 26-percent increase in pay rolls in contrast to a rise of only 7 percent in employment. This reflected, primarily, changes in the regular-establishment employees at the Panama Canal. Two pay rolls are maintained for such employees in the Canal Zone; the "gold roll" which includes administrative, technical, and clerical employees who receive, for work in the Canal Zone, 25 percent above the basic salary scale established in the Classification Act of 1923, as amended; and the "silver roll" which includes common laborers and custodial employees who are paid in accordance with the wage rates prevailing for such work in the Canal Zone. Although the total number of regular-establishment employees decreased between June 1940 and June 1941, the number of "gold-roll" employees increased as a result of the large number of highly skilled technical employees required for the construction of a third set of locks. Consequently, while employment for the Panama Canal decreased 2 percent, pay rolls rose 24 percent. Although the general trend in Federal employment between June 1940 and June 1941 was upward, five functional groups shown in table 1 lost employees over this period. Proportionately, the largest reduction (25 percent) was in general information and research and was occasioned by the release of temporary workers hired in connection with the decennial census of 1940. However, more workers were involved in the reductions in welfare and agriculture. Although large decreases in the Work Projects Administration and the Civilian Con The Corps of Engineers has both civil and military functions; it is in charge of the river, harbor, and flood-control projects of the Federal Government and provides engineer service to the Army. See also note 3. 1 Some units with force-account employees appear under two functional groups. This occurs wherever a unit has force-account employees engaged on construction which comes under the heading of public works. In such cases, the regular-establishment employees are classified according to the primary function of the unit and the force-account employees are tabulated under public works. This distinction originated from the types of coin with which the different groups of workers were paid. Although the distinction is no longer observed in the method of payment, it is currently used as a rough occupational designation. |