WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been rated by employees as among the top 10 best places to work in the federal government, moving up two notches to come in at seventh place in the 2017 rankings. That is an improvement over 2016’s rankings, when USDA came in tied for ninth place. 

The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings are produced by the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte and include opinions from more than 498,000 civil servants from 200 federal organizations on a wide range of workplace topics.

The rankings come from a complex algorithm that weighs responses to questions spanning from “is my organization a good place to work?” to “how satisfied are you with your job?” These measures are widely considered the most comprehensive rating of employee engagement in the federal government.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue issued the following statement:

“Our high-quality USDA employees work hard every day to provide the best possible services to our customers: the farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers of American agriculture. It’s our shared goal to be the most effective, most efficient, most customer-focused department in the entire federal government. And this year’s rankings show that USDA is also a great place to work and is improving every day. It is an honor to work alongside such dedicated professionals who make coming to work such a pleasure.”