OPM prepares for overhaul of federal workforce data platform
The updated FedScope will have new visuals, datasets and tools “tailored to answer the most frequently asked questions about federal employment,” OPM said.
July 1, 2025 5:35 pm
3 min read
The government’s database of federal employment statistics is on the verge of a major update, the Office of Personnel Management announced on Tuesday.
A planned overhaul of FedScope — one of OPM’s largest data assets — will occur in iterations and culminate in the launch of a new and modernized FedScope platform this fall.
The updated platform will contain “interactive visuals” and “detailed datasets,” as well as new tools “tailored to answer the most frequently asked questions about federal employment,” the Trump administration wrote in a press release Tuesday.
Some early steps of the FedScope modernization process are already underway. OPM published new federal employment, accession and separation data, up to March 2025, on the legacy FedScope website.
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The data currently available through FedScope doesn’t entirely capture the federal workforce overhauls that have taken place during the Trump administration. But in its press release, OPM lauded the March 2025 data, which shows an initial net reduction of about 23,000 federal employees governmentwide.
“Hundreds of thousands more workers will drop off the rolls in October 2025, when workers depart the federal government as part of the deferred resignation program; and tens of thousands of employees who have received reduction-in-force or termination notices remain on government payrolls due to court orders that the administration is now challenging,” OPM wrote.
OPM’s need to modernize its data assets has been on the government’s radar for about a decade. In a report from 2016, the Government Accountability Office recommended that OPM update the FedScope platform and improve the availability of payroll data in the Enterprise Human Resources Integration system, which maintains electronic Official Personnel Folders for federal employees.
OPM has been working to update several of its workforce data assets since at least the end of the Biden administration. Federal News Network reported in early January that the agency was already in the process of building out its data management capabilities for FedScope and EHRI. OPM also said in December 2023 that it had finalized a two-year data improvement plan and was targeting a completion date at the end of fiscal 2025, according to last year’s budget justification.
In its July 1 press release, the Trump administration criticized what it said was a lack of prioritization and a lagging timeline for updating FedScope during the previous administration. Instead, OPM said the platform is now “undergoing immediate enhancements.”
“OPM is looking to finalize this modernization effort within the first year of this administration,” an agency spokesperson told Federal News Network by email. “If the Biden-Harris administration had prioritized this, it would be done already.”
It’s unclear what datasets will be available once the new FedScope platform launches this fall. The Trump administration already wiped race and ethnicity data from FedScope earlier this year, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The data was removed as part of President Donald Trump’s orders to eliminate all diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs across government.
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An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on whether the agency would make further changes to the types of federal workforce data collected and published on FedScope.
OPM’s announcement also comes after the agency eliminated its Human Capital Data Management and Modernization office through multiple rounds of reductions in force. The HCDMM component had been responsible for overseeing OPM’s large workforce datasets, including FedScope and the EHRI system. All OPM employees working in the HCDMM component either saw their positions terminated or took voluntary resignation offers this spring.
Following the RIFs, an OPM spokesperson said the agency’s Human Resources Solutions department is now handling the FedScope modernization effort.
OPM said it will continue to engage with regular users of FedScope, such as researchers, journalists and policymakers, to help guide the redesign of the platform.
“Data transparency is essential to building trust in the federal government,” OPM Acting Director Chuck Ezell said. “By modernizing FedScope, we’re delivering on our promise to make federal workforce data easier to access and understand, ensuring the public and agencies alike have the information they need to make informed decisions.”
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