The Dramatic Expansion of the Federal Workforce

On Monday, January 23, 2017 President Trump issued an executive order which institutes federal hiring freeze.

At a news conference also on Monday, Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer said the freeze "counters the dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years."

The statement caused me to wonder, has there been a dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years?

So I did a quick Google search and stumbled upon the federal government's Office of Personnel Management website. Yes, there is such a thing. And, in fact, they have regularly gathered statistics about the size of the federal workforce since 1962.

Here's what it looks like in graphical form:

There doesn't appear to be a "dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years".  In fact, after an increase in 2008 (1.9%), 2009 (5%), and 2010 (.2%), by 2014 the workforce had already shrunk down to 2004 levels. Note that in the 2009 and 2010 increases, more than half of the increase came in the form of an increase in uniformed military personnel.

Presumably the 2011-2014 trend continues and the data for 2015 and 2016 show similar rates of decrease.

Also note that every ten years there is an increase in the federal workforce to perform the decennial census.