Federal Employees

Trends in Career and Noncareer Employee Appointments in the Executive Branch Gao ID: GGD-87-96FS July 8, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO provided information on trends in the career and noncareer mix of agency executives and in the number of Schedule C appointments for fiscal years 1980, 1983, and 1986.

GAO computed the trends for the executive branch and for 27 executive branch agencies and found that: (1) as of September 1986, each agency had at least 4,500 civilian employees or 75 Senior Executive Service (SES) members; (2) between FY 1980 and 1986, the number of executive branch noncareer SES members and Schedule C employees increased 13.1 percent and 12.8 percent, respectively, while the number of career SES members decreased 5.3 percent; (3) between FY 1980 and 1986, the governmentwide percentage of noncareer SES appointees increased from 6.8 to 8.4 percent; and (4) the Small Business Administration, which was the only sampled agency that exceeded the 25-percent limit for noncareer appointees to allocated SES positions, qualified for an exception to the limit because more than 25 percent of its executives were noncareer when SES was created.



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