What is "full-time equivalent"

n. The result of a calculation to estimate the effective size of a workforce that may include part-time workers.

Full-time equivalent (FTE) or whole time equivalent (WTE) is a unit that indicates the workload of an employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often used to measure a worker's or student's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization. An FTE of 1.0 is equivalent to a full-time worker or student, while an FTE of 0.5 signals half of a full work or school load.