I just returned from the Career Directors International conference in Orlando and I got an earful about jobs in the federal government from Barbara Adams, President of CareerPro Global Inc. If you’ve never considered applying for positions in the government, here are some interesting stats that may lead you to reconsider.

• Obama will expand the number of civilians in the executive branch by 140,000 to reach a total of 2M. That’s the highest this number has been since Clinton took office in 1992.
• The federal government plans to fil 293,000 mission critical jobs over the next 5 years.
• More than 40% of the 1.5M federal employees will retire in the next 5 years; the federal government needs new blood!
• The Obama administration is expanding the FDIC, SEC, NIST, DOE, EPA, NSF, and DOT agencies.
• The federal government is the only national employer that will continue to fill jobs regardless of economic conditions.
• Benefits packages for federal government jobs are worth 43% of the base salary; this is a much more generous package than typically offered in the private sector.

In addition to the increase in federal jobs, the Obama stimulus plan will result in the creation of 5M new green jobs.

Most federal job vacancies can be found on USA Jobs and executive federal positions can be found at Senior Executive Service.