Near as I can tell, the federal workforce is a little over 2,000,000.//
I felt the same way when reading the article. I was a little surprised that there were only 2 mil federal workers till I just learned the 1/2 mil postal workers probably aren’t included in the 2 mil. I wonder how many others aren’t included.
I suspect the SESers are considered essential though most of the upper mgt where I work aren’t. We went from a most efficient (by govt standards) organization to one that seems to have 2 people doing the same job. I’d guess its the same at or worse at the SES level.
You are correct. Postal employees were not included in that 2 million. Though it is an OPM number. Finding a sensible defined count was a chore. One count took it up to almost 14 million!
As far as efficiency, I maintain that all government entities should eliminate at least one complete layer of organization and two layers of management. And I mean rip them out, eliminating the positions. The bloat adds no value and is counterproductive.
Such is the nature of government bureaucracy. That’s one reason why we should keep the government beast at the edge of starvation.
But it’s like shouting in a hurricane.