This is the first in a series of posts that will look back at this year’s assault on the federal workforce and efforts to oppose it. This post will describe and quantify the damage done by the administration. Future posts will discuss legal challenges to the administration’s policies in court and at the Merit Systems Protection Board.
The administration shrank the federal workforce by 11% in 2025
According to data published by OPM, the administration reduced the size of the federal workforce by nearly 11% in 2025. This includes the separation of nearly 14% of federal government employees, via termination and resignation, mitigated by the hiring of a smaller number of new employees. Let’s break down these numbers:
For context, the total number of civilian employees as of September 2024 was 2,313,216. This is the most recent data in OPM’s FedScope database.
To give a sense of how these employees were distributed, about a third worked for the military (DOD, Army, Navy, or Air Force). That leaves about 1.5 million who worked for non-military agencies. The largest agency was the VA, with more than 480,000 employees. Other notable agencies included the Department of Homeland Security with about 227,000 employees; DOJ with about 117,000 employees (including about 37,000 FBI employees); and HHS with about 92,000 employees. Some cabinet agencies were much smaller: the Department of Education only had 4200 employees, the Department of Labor had fewer than 15,000, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development had about 8800.
The Trump administration appears to have slashed the total civil federal workforce by a net total of 249,000 people this year, according to numbers published by OPM Director Scott Kupor on X. Kupor posted that “approximately 317,000 employees will have left the federal workforce by year-end.” That constitutes a reduction of 13.7% of the total number of federal employees as of September 2024. Kupor further stated that about 68,000 federal employees were hired, for a net reduction of 249,000, or about 10.7% of the federal workforce as of September 2024.
We can see the massive scale of this reduction by comparing it to the size of notable agencies. For instance, the reduction in employees in 2025 is more than double the size of the entire Department of Justice as of September 2024. DOJ is responsible for enforcement of federal criminal and civil laws, and it includes not only the FBI but also the entire federal prison system, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, and other components. Imagine taking all of the people doing that work in 2024, terminating them, then terminating an equal number of people again. That would still be less than the total number of federal employees lost in 2025.
Likewise, the loss of federal employees in 2025 is equal to losing about 10 DOLs or about 17 HUDs.
Looking outside the federal government, the reduction of federal employees over 2025 is greater than the total number of people employed globally by CVS or Bank of America, according to Wikipedia.
Reductions by agency
We haven’t been able to find comprehensive data regarding terminations and resignations by agency. However, we’ve pieced together numbers for several significant agencies:
| Employees as of Sept. 2024 (OPM FedScope) | Headcount reduction in 2025 | Approximate percent reduction in 2025 | |
| USAID | 4800 employees | Nearly all, per reporting, with a few hundred likely rehired or retained | 90%-95% |
| HHS | 92,620 employees | Approximately 30,000, per agency press release indicating staffing of 62,000 | 32% |
| State Department | 14,969 employees | Approximately 3,000, per agency | 21% |
| IRS | 99,001 employees | 26,411, per agency | 27% |
| Department of Education | 4209 employees | 1950, per agency | 46% |
| Military (DOD, Army, Navy, Air Force) | 772,549 employees | At least 60,000, per agency | 8% |
| VA | 482,831 employees | At least 30,000, per agency press release | 6% |
“Voluntary” departures
The administration claims that most employees who departed in 2025 did so “voluntarily” through the deferred resignation program, in which the administration encouraged employees to resign in exchange for a guarantee of employment (typically on administrative leave) through September 30.
But these departures were not truly voluntary. The administration encouraged employees to resign while simultaneously threatening to fire those who remained. (From the original fork email: “the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force.”) Meanwhile, the administration worsened working conditions for federal employees in numerous ways, with an apparent goal of pressuring employees to resign.
In short, a large majority of the 317,000 employee separations in 2025 resulted from the administration’s anti-worker policies, not merely employees’ voluntary choices to resign.
Terminations: Probationary employees, RIFs, and retaliation
According to OPM, the administration fired 6900 probationary employees in 2025. But the administration tried to fire many more. Approximately 24,000 probationary workers received termination notices in February and March. Many of those employees were later reinstated through court orders.
Aside from the probationary employee terminations, Kupor says that 17,000 employees were terminated through RIFs. Again, the administration tried to RIF more employees. For instance, Kupor’s number doesn’t include more than 1400 CFPB employees who the administration tried to lay off before a court intervened.
The administration has also targeted individual employees in retaliation for their involvement in politically-disfavored programs or protected speech. For example:
- DOJ and FBI employees were fired for working on January 6 cases
- FBI employees were fired for kneeling during a protest in 2020
- EPA employees were fired for signing a letter criticizing government policies
The effect on those who remain
So far, we’ve talked about employees separated from the federal government. But the administration’s actions have also taken a toll on the remaining employees:
- The administration attempted to strip collective bargaining rights from a huge number of federal employees.
- The administration eliminated remote work programs—even where those programs were mandated through legally binding contracts.
- Employees have been transferred involuntarily (often out of jobs enforcing civil rights).
- The administration’s actions have caused many employees to fear that they could be fired in the future, especially if they exercise their legal rights to criticize government policy or complain about unfair treatment.
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In sum, this has been an extraordinarily damaging year for the federal workforce. In future posts, we will discuss litigation challenging these policies in court and at the MSPB.