Federal employment in the Philadelphia metro area had been declining steadily since at least 1990 before experiencing a slight uptick over the past half decade.
A line chart shows the change in the number of employees at federal agencies in the Philadelphia metro area between 1990 and 2025. The figures show that, as of January 2025, the federal government employed 57,100 workers in the region. That's down from a high of 78,100, the earliest date for which data are available.