OPM’s federal workforce data site just got a major overhaul

The Office of Personnel Management launched a new workforce data website this week, replacing an antiquated interface and aiming to bring more transparency to federal employment figures.

OPM officially announced the new Federal Workforce Data site Thursday, with data up to November for most categories. That site includes accessible statistics of interest — such as a reduction of 220,000 workers under President Donald Trump — as well as multiple interactive charts that users can filter by agency, timeframe, or other factors.

In a written statement, OPM Director Scott Kupor called the website “a major step forward for accountability and data-driven decision-making across government.”

While federal workforce data has long been made publicly available online, the old interface, FedScope, was cumbersome and offered data updates on a quarterly basis that lagged by months. In addition to a more modern interface, the new website adds datasets for payroll and recruitment, and promises updates on a faster monthly interval. 

Per a note on the website, FedScope will no longer be available as of Jan. 28.

Despite controversy over the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the workforce, publication of the website was immediately well received by federal data users and advocates. In comments to FedScoop, those sources both applauded the new website and noted that interest in improving the publication of federal workforce data began before the current administration.

Nick Hart, president and CEO of the nonpartisan data policy think tank Data Foundation, similarly praised the release, highlighting the important role data plays in helping citizens understand their government.

“Modernizing FedScope was long overdue, and OPM’s new platform demonstrates

that collected data should be useful, not just available,” Hart said. “The improvements in timeliness, accessibility, and analytical functionality represent exactly the kind of modernization federal data systems need.”

Gabe Menchaca, a former official in the Biden White House focused on the workforce and current senior policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, told FedScoop that the platform has so far exceeded his expectations.

Menchaca said OPM has “succeeded in accomplishing what we really wanted when we started talking about the FedScope replacement” roughly a year to a year-and-a-half ago when he was still at the White House Office of Management and Budget. 

That initial aim was to produce something the average person could use while retaining the important functionality of the FedScope platform, such as the ability to download data or show change over time, he said. 

During the Biden administration, Menchaca was the data technology lead for human resources IT systems from the OMB perspective, and, as a result, has deep experience working with the datasets that make up the new tool.

The new website is “what I had in mind when we started talking about replacing FedScope, but I had not been sure that we were actually going to get there,” Menchaca said. He added that OPM deserves “a lot of credit for this.”

Menchaca also credited previous work that laid the foundation for the change, including that of former OPM Chief Data Officer Ted Kaouk. While at OPM, Kaouk developed the agency’s first federal data strategy and began to refocus the use of the information coming into the agency, he said.

Kaouk, who is a senior fellow at the Data Foundation, provided a written comment through the data organization on Thursday.

“This platform builds on years of foundational work and delivers what the public and policymakers need most right now — timely, reliable data to understand how the federal workforce is evolving,” Kaouk said. “When government makes its data truly usable, it strengthens accountability and enables better decisions at every level.”

For individual data scientists and researchers, the new website provides new clarity.

Abigail Haddad, a data scientist and former Department of Homeland Security AI Corps member who creates and shares resources she’s developed using public federal data, told FedScoop the website is a “huge improvement in terms of accessibility and design.”

“I’m a big FedScope user, and I still never figured out how to effectively use the old drag-and-drop interface,” Haddad said. “I remember screen-sharing with someone and trying to walk them through it, and I couldn’t figure out how to do it myself. It’s so much clearer now.”

The new website also improves upon the ability for users to download raw data, which is the unprocessed information that fuels the visualizations and stats on the website. Previously, users had to merge 10 files or more to get the data they wanted, Haddad said. Now, they can download that information in a .csv file.

“I understand there are capabilities still in development, and there are things I know I want, but they did a great job here,” she said.

One new addition that is of interest is payroll information. 

Menchaca said that while OPM has always collected that data, it wasn’t traditionally available on FedScope. The new website now encompasses that information, including for an interactive table on administrative leave. “It’ll be interesting to see if OPM does more with that,” Menchaca said.

The new site also includes data from the federal jobs website USAJobs. That specific dataset is current as of Jan. 5, and provides a new and easier way to access information about federal government hiring trends. 

While there are additional data elements included in the platform, several data elements that were on FedScope are not being included. Data on disability status, gender, race and national origin, and ethnicity aren’t included as a result of several Trump administration directives aimed at ridding the federal government of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to the new website. 

OPM publicly announced it was beginning the process to modernize FedScope in July with expectations of launching in the fall. 

The process of creating the website has taken just a few months. OPM spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover told FedScoop in an email that the process first began with a discovery phase to learn from FedScope users in July. Developers began building the site in August and major features were completed in December. The project was done in house, per Pinover.

As far as next steps, Pinover said, OPM expects to make regular iterations and improvements, and may expand the data available based on what it learns from the launch.