The federal workforce has contracted by 336,000 employees since President Donald Trump took office, reflecting his administration’s drive to reduce the size of the government bureaucracy.
Federal government employment fell by another 5,000 in August to 2.674 million, the Labor Department said Friday. That is down from 3.010 million in January 2025, a decline of 11.2 percent.
Over the past year, federal payrolls have shrunk by 242,000 workers. Excluding the U.S. Postal Service, the decline was even larger, at approximately 251,000. Postal Service employment increased by around 9,000 during the same period, partially offsetting the broader reduction.
The contraction has slowed considerably this year. Federal employment is down by just 11,000 since January, indicating that the steepest cuts occurred during the first year of Trump’s second term.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described the shift away from government employment and spending as the “reprivatization” of the economy. “Wall Street has done great, it is time for Main Street to do well and small businesses need to drive what I call the reprivatization away from government spending,” Bessent said during his confirmation hearing last year.
The reversal of the Biden-era trend of expanding federal employment is even more striking. If federal employment had continued growing at its Biden-era pace, it would employ roughly 3.06 million workers today, nearly 386,000 more than it actually does.
The decline in federal employment stands in contrast to continued hiring in the private economy. Private-sector payrolls rose by 127,000 in August, more than double the 53,000 increase expected by economists. Total nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000, while the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent.
Overall government employment nevertheless increased by 35,000 during August because state and local hiring outweighed the federal reductions. Local government payrolls rose by 50,000, including nearly 42,000 jobs in local public education. State government employment declined by 10,000.
The figures show a marked change in the composition of government employment. While state and local payrolls continue to expand, the federal government now employs fewer workers than at any point since 2015.
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