Study: contractor workforce is growing faster than federal jobs.

Federal contracts generated more than 5 million jobs in 2002. according to an estimate by Eagle Eye Publishers for the Brookings Institution's Center for Public Service.

Nearly 3 million additional jobs were supported by federal grants. Taken together, grant and contract employees outnumber federal government employees by about two-to-one. the study found.

The number of contract and grant jobs has grown by 1. 1 million since 1999. "The government's largely-hidden workforce created through contracts and grants has reached its highest level since before the end of the Cold War," said the center's director, Paul Light.

He said some of the post-1999 growth occurred in the final year of the Clinton administration, but most of the new on- and off-budget jobs appear to reflect increased spending under the Bush administration. Many of these jobs have been added at agencies involved in the war on terrorism, but many have also been added at domestic agencies.

The study found that the growth in contract and grant-generated employment has occurred in all areas of government except for Energy, NASA and several domestic agencies.

By itself, the Department of Defense accounts for roughly 500,000 of' the new contract- and grant-generated jobs, while domestic agencies account for slightly more.

The growth in defense has come entirely through contracts, while the growth in non-defense employment has been split one-third/two-thirds between contracts and grants respectively. Light said it is impossible to calculate how many of these jobs were created through congressional earmarks of one kind or another.

Increased defense spending for weapons systems accounts for a large share of the increased contract workforce. Service contract jobs grew the fastest at the General Service Administration, largely driven by the growing popularity of GSA schedules for purchasing information technology services.

According to a 1999 public opinion survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates on behalf of the Center for Public Service, roughly two in five U.S. households contain someone who works either directly for the federal government or indirectly through contracts, grants, or mandates.