(Reuters) -President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk are undertaking a sweeping campaign to cut the size of the 2.3 million-strong civilian U.S. government workforce. Over 260,000 employees have been fired, taken early retirement, have been earmarked for termination or have accepted buyouts.
A new wave of cuts targeting career government workers has begun, together with a second buyout offer. Over 75,000 federal employees took an original buyout deal offered in January.
Here are details of some of the layoffs, announced firings, buyouts and resignations at federal departments and agencies gleaned by Reuters reporters.
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
More than 22,000 employees at the tax-collecting IRS have accepted the Trump administration’s latest buyout offer, two agency sources told Reuters on April 15, which coincidentally is the tax-filing deadline for most Americans.
The IRS is planning to eliminate 20% to 25% of its workforce by May 15, according to a person briefed on the agency’s plans.
The IRS had about 100,000 workers when Trump took office.
With the latest buyout figures, possibly a third will leave the agency.
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
The Social Security Administration, the agency that provides benefits to tens of millions of older Americans and those with disabilities, plans to cut 7,000 workers, reducing its workforce by more than 12% to 50,000.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
The U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services will cut about 10,000 full-time jobs and close half of its regional offices, it said on March 27, a major overhaul of the department under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Employees of various departmental agencies began receiving their termination notices on April 1.
The latest job cuts, and about 10,000 recent voluntary departures, will reduce the number of full-time employees at the department to 62,000 from 82,000, the department said.
VETERANS AFFAIRS
The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut more than 80,000 workers from the agency, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, sent the memo to senior agency officials, telling them the goal was to return the agency to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000.
That would mean cutting about 82,000 staff, many of whom are veterans.
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
The Pentagon has so far approved 21,000 applications from civilian employees to take the original buyout offer, a number set to rise.
The Pentagon says it has also started a hiring freeze and aims to ultimately reduce its 950,000-strong civilian workforce by 5% to 8%.
USAID
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which oversees the delivery of American humanitarian assistance, has said that all direct hires except essential workers will be put on leave and 1,600 USAID personnel in the U.S.
will be cut. It also plans to fire the more than 10,000 foreign nationals employed by USAID, as well as U.S. diplomats and civil servants assigned to USAID missions abroad.
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency has fired a slew of recent hires, three people familiar with the matter said, cuts that current and former U.S.
intelligence officers warned would risk damaging U.S. national security. Reuters could not determine the exact number.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
At least 75 career Justice Department lawyers and FBI officials, who normally keep their roles from administration to administration, have either resigned, been fired or stripped of their posts in the first weeks of the Trump administration.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
About 2,300 workers were laid off from the Interior Department, sources said, including about 800 people from the Bureau of Land Management, which manages millions of federally owned acres for uses ranging from oil and gas development to timber harvesting, recreation and cultural preservation.
Overall, the department employs more than 70,000 people and oversees 500 million acres (202.3 million hectares) of public lands, including dozens of national parks.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
The USDA fired nearly 6,000 probationary workers in mid-February, including 3,400 at the Forest Service, a division of the agency that manages millions of acres of national forests and grasslands, equal to 10% of its workforce, people familiar with the plans said.
Others fired included workers at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which supports agricultural science and technology research, and the Economic Research Service, which produces reports and data on the farm economy, sources said.
The agency was ordered by federal courts in March to reinstate those probationary workers.
On April 1, it offered employees a second round of financial incentives to leave the agency, according to an email seen by Reuters, as the agency finalizes its broader plan to lay off staff.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
The Trump administration has asked U.S.
missions worldwide to prepare for staff cuts as part of an overhaul of the U.S. diplomatic corps. Trump says he wants a workforce that will not dither in implementing his policies.
Some embassies had been asked to look into reducing both U.S.
staff as well as locally employed staff by 10% each. Already, dozens of contractors working at various State Department bureaus have been laid off.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
About 700 workers have been laid off at the Department of Energy, the agency said.
Sources have told Reuters that as many as 2,000 workers have been informed they were being laid off and that managers were told to provide evidence for why some of those should be rehired.
On February 14, sources said 325 workers had been sent notice that they had been laid off from the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department office that manages the U.S.
nuclear weapons arsenal and secures dangerous nuclear materials around the world. But after a public uproar and a scramble by the administration to hire back some of these employees, fewer than 50 workers from the agency were ultimately purged, the Energy Department said.
Overall, the Energy Department has about 14,000 employees and 95,000 contractors.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
The Environmental Protection Agency, which enforces laws such as the Clean Air Act and works to protect the environment, has fired 388 probationary employees.
The agency has also placed on leave nearly 200 employees who work on environmental justice programs. The White House has said the EPA plans to cut its spending by 65%.
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
The FAA fired more than 300 employees out of its workforce of 45,000, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X, as questions arise around air traffic safety amid a spate of recent plane accidents.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Trump on March 20 signed an executive order intended to essentially dismantle the Department of Education, making good on a campaign promise to shutter the agency, although Congress would need to approve that.
The order is designed to leave school policy almost entirely in the hands of states and local boards, a prospect that alarms liberal education advocates.
The department had already announced on March 11 that it will cut nearly half its staff.
Those layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that provides the U.S.
government’s weather forecasts, is planning layoffs of 1,029 workers, its second round of cuts.
NOAA has already cut 1,300 employees through the mass firing of probationary workers and a voluntary buyout program.
In addition to everyday forecasting, NOAA – which houses the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center and two tsunami warning centers – provides crucial information to help Americans survive weather emergencies.
SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
The Small Business Administration, the agency that provides loans and support to small businesses across the country, said on March 21 that it will eliminate about 2,700 jobs or roughly 40% of its overall staff.
OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
OPM, which has led the charge on federal government firings, has laid off more than 200 of its own employees and allowed over 400 to opt into voluntary exit programs since Trump took office, two people familiar with the matter said.
One of the sources said another 90 people had opted into a program to incentivize early retirement.
Other agencies or independent government agencies that face cuts, or have been effectively closed, include:
The U.S.
Institute for Peace
Voice of America
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The General Services Administration
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
The Institute of Museum and Library Services
(Reporting by Tim Reid, Joseph Ax, Val Volcovici, Humeyra Pamuk, Douglas Gillison, Leah Douglas, Tim Gardner, David Shepardson, and Nathan Layne; Editing by Ross Colvin, Howard Goller, Daniel Wallis and Rod Nickel)
