Department of Labor - Federal Departments

Year Founded: 1913

Employees: 14,194

Outlay: $138B / year

Employee Expense: $1.4B in 2021

The Federal Government is broken down into fifteen departments, each of which consists of a number of sub-departments and organizational groups tasked with accomplishing the Department's overall goals.

The United States Department of Labor works to guarantee livable wages, safe working conditions, and fair employment practices such as equal opportunity employment for all Americans. The DOL works to provide unemployment benefits for millions of Americans who lost their job through no fault of their own and provide reemployment services to those who need it. DOL also keeps economic and labor statistics.

Who does the Department of Labor hire?

The DOL hires economists, accountants, lawyers, statisticians and financial experts as well social workers and experts in specialized fields such as mine safety experts.

In 2021, the most common occupation employed by the Department of Labor was Economist at 1,150 employees. The second largest occupation was Wage And Hour Investigation Series with 1,120 employees.

Based in Washington D.C. the Department of Labor has offices across the country and in most major cities.

History of the Department of Labor

The Department of Labor started as the Department of Commerce and Labor and split into its own department on March 4, 1913. The new Department absorbed the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the Department of the Interior and became a Cabinet-level Department.

The Department of Labor has helped to pass important legislation to protect workers including the Federal Employees Compensation act of 1916 which provided benefits of people who were injured on the job.

In the 1960s there was an effort to consolidate the Department of Labor and the Department of Commerce back into a single department. Combining the departments would cut overhead and improve communication between the two similar departments. The two departments have similar goals; however they tend to pursue their goals in different ways. In the end, congress made no action to rejoin the departments.

In the 1970s the DoL played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. The DoL made a concerted effort to ensure African Americans were represented in labor unions across the country.

Average Pay of an Employee in the Department of Labor

Agencies in the Department of Labor (2021)