In what is being called the largest single-year cut in civilian federal employment since World War II, 2025 will end with 300,000 fewer workers employed by the United States government.
New Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor told several news outlets, most recently the New York Times, that the federal workforce will drop from 2.4 million to 2.1 million employees, largely as the result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts.
In a lengthy interview this week with Washington, DC, station WTOP, Kupor said that up to 80 percent of the reductions come from federal workers choosing to access buyouts or another program that paid them while they looked for other work.
“I think the team that designed those did as much as they could to be appropriately generous and give people as long of a runway as they could to go transition into something,” Kupor told the station.
The other 20 percent were fired, Kupor told Reuters in a previous interview. The total reduction amounts to a 12.5 percent decrease in the federal workforce of approximately 2.3 million.
OPM is sometimes described as the human resources department of the federal government.
President Harry S. Truman reduced the civilian federal work force by 1.3 million following World War II, largely in the defense industry. Other presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, made substantial reductions, though theirs, unlike President Donald Trump’s, took multiple years to accomplish.
CNN has featured a tracker of employee reductions implemented by the Trump administration. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) dismissed some 10,000 employees when it was dismantled entirely.
Others, as Breitbart News reported, include more than 20,000 employees reportedly cut or accepting buyouts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Some 7,300 have been dismissed at the Internal Revenue Service, according to the CNN tracker.
Kupor told the Times he doesn’t expect any significant new layoff announcements this year, Forbes reported.
Kupor, confirmed to his position in July, comes from the private sector, where he was a managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm.
He told the TV station he’s well aware of the personal consequences for some of those who no longer have federal jobs.
“I recognize and understand we’re talking about very serious things. Anytime we do layoffs or reductions, you know, that impacts people’s families, it impacts people’s friends, it impacts their ability to be contributing members to their community,” he said. “And look, we need to recognize and understand that is a difficult thing for people to live through.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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