Government Expansion

The federal sector is still hiring nationwide and overseas. The Affordable Health Care Act includes over 100 new regulatory agencies and commissions and more federal regulators will be needed to administer new EPA and OSHA regulations and to manage the many other federal programs that have been expanded over the past 5 years. The federal government now owns all of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac plus they took over 100% of the student loan program. There will be bumps along the way and many agencies may experience some downsizing to address budget shortfalls.

There is considerable competition for anyone seeking federal employment and those interested in working for Uncle Sam must develop a professional federal style resume and application to remain competitive and start the process early to improve their chances of success.

2012 Annual Rates by Grade and Step

Note: Locality Pay – No Increase for 2012. The President’s pay agent reported that in accordance with current methods, the (ECI) wage and salary component, private industry workers, increased by 1.6 percent. Therefore, the January 2012 general increase, if permissible and granted, would be 1.1 percent (1.6 percent minus 0.5 percentage points).  We note that under recent legislation imposing a freeze on Federal pay increases in 2012 these rates cannot be adopted.

The President’s Executive order contains the 2012 rates of basic pay for the statutory pay systems--the General Schedule (GS), Foreign Service schedule, and certain schedules of the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The rates of basic pay for these systems will not be increased in 2012 and remain at 2010/2011 levels.

Rates frozen at 2010 rates.

Locality Payments

RATES FROZEN AT 2010 LEVELS

• 2010 locality pay rates
• 2009 locality pay rates
• 2008 locality pay rates
• 2007 locality pay rates
• 2006 locality pay rates
• 2005 locality pay rates

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