Number of Jobs Created or Retained – FTE Estimate Examples
Guidance issued 12/18/09 by the federal Office of Management and Budget
Revised OMB guidance issued 12/18/09 provides the following guidelines for ARRA Jobs FTE Calculation:
- Job estimates will be calculated based on hours worked in the current reporting quarter only. Recipients will no longer be required to maintain a cumulative total of hours worked in all prior quarters as part of the formula.
- All individuals working on an ARRA award, whether fully or partially, should be counted. You may use the percent of effort funded by an ARRA award for the reporting quarter as an FTE equivalent. A funded job is defined as one in which the wages or salaries are either paid for or will be reimbursed by ARRA funding.
- Job estimates should be reported based on the total available time in the reporting quarter (520 hours per FTE), regardless of when the grant period or employment period begins.
- Jobs Created and Jobs Retained can be reported together in a single numeric FTE field. Recipients will no longer be required to distinguish between a job created and a job retained when calculating and reporting FTE.
Example: FTE Calculation Based on Quarterly Hours Worked
Assume that a new ARRA funded project requires two full-time employees beginning the first day of the 4Q 2009 reporting quarter, and one part-time employee working half days (50% time) beginning the last month of the reporting quarter.
A full-time schedule for one employee for a quarter is 520 hours
(2080 hours in a work year divided by 4 quarters in a year). For
ARRA reporting, departments should always use 520 hours to
calculate FTE.
To convert hours worked to number of "full-time equivalent" (FTE)
employees for the first quarterly report, total all hours worked
in the quarter and divide by the number of hours (520 hrs) in a full-time
schedule. 
In this example:
- Full-time hours worked (520 hrs x 2 employees = 1040 hrs) + part-time hours worked (80 hours) divided by number of hours in a full-time quarterly schedule (520 hrs) = 2.15 FTE in the first project quarter:
- (1040 + 80) / 520 = (1120 / 520) total hours = 2.15 FTE
The part-time employee continues on this project at 50% time (260
hrs/qtr) through the end of 3Q 2010 = 2.50 FTE reported for each
quarter. At the end of 3Q 2010, the part-time employment period ends.
For the final quarter, with no part-time employee, the project
reports 2.00 FTE.
| Project Start: 4Q 2009 – Project End: 4Q 2010 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4Q 2009 | 1Q 2010 | 2Q 2010 | 3Q 2010 | 4Q 2010 | |
| Employee #1 – full-time hours worked | 520 | 520 | 520 | 520 | 520 |
| Employee #2 – full-time hours worked | 520 | 520 | 520 | 520 | 520 |
| Employee #3 – part-time (50%) hours worked | 80 | 260 | 260 | 260 | 0 |
| A. Total Hours Worked by Quarter | 1120 | 1300 | 1300 | 1300 | 1040 |
| B. Quarterly Hours for one Full-Time
FTE |
520 | 520 | 520 | 520 | 520 |
| FTE: Number of Jobs Created/Retained (A divided by B)  |
2.15 |
2.50 |
2.50 |
2.50 |
2.00 |
Example: FTE Calculation Based on Percent of Effort
- The new OMB guidance allows colleges and universities to use the percentage of effort funded by ARRA awards as an FTE equivalent. A funded job is defined as one in which the wages or salaries are either paid for or will be reimbursed by ARRA funding.
- If the percent of effort for each employee working on a project remains the same throughout the quarterly reporting period, the FTE equivalent is straightforward: 100% time = 1.00 FTE; 50% time = 0.50 FTE; etc.
- For those projects where the percent of effort fluctuates for any employee throughout the quarterly reporting period, you must calculate an average equivalent FTE for the reporting quarter, as follows:
Assume that a new ARRA funded project requires two staff employees beginning April 1, 2010 — one full-time employee and one half-time employee. In addition, the faculty member leading this project spends 5% of his time during the semester overseeing this project, and devotes 100% of his summer salary on the project.
- For each ARRA project employee, enter the "FTE equivalent" effort
for all three months of the reporting quarter.
- Total the effort for each month, and add the monthly totals together
to get a total for the reporting quarter.
- Average Equivalent FTE = Total FTE Equivalent for the Quarter divided
by 3 (months in the quarter)
- For the reporting quarter ending 6/30/10, the project reports 1.87
FTE (5.60 divided by 3)
| April 2010 | May 2010 | June 2010 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staff Employee #1 – full-time (100%) |
1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | — |
| Staff Employee #2 – half-time (50%) |
0.50 | 0.50 | 0.50 | — |
| Faculty #1 |
0.05 | 0.05 | 1.00 | — |
| FTE Equivalent by Month and Quarter |
1.55 | 1.55 | 2.50 | 5.60 |
| Average Equivalent FTE: Number of
Jobs Created/Retained for Quarter (5.60 divided by 3 months) |
1.87 |
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