(Reuters) -President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk are undertaking a sweeping campaign to cut the size of the 2.3-million-strong civilian U.S. government workforce with plans to fire or offer buyouts to more than 100,000 employees.
The layoffs have primarily been aimed at probationary workers, many in jobs for less than a year with fewer job protections than longer-tenured staffers.
A judge ruled in March that the terminations of some 25,000 probationary employees were likely illegal, forcing federal agencies to begin reinstating them. However, the reinstated employees were immediately put on paid leave.
Meanwhile, a new wave of cuts targeting career government workers has begun and is intensifying after Trump ordered federal agencies to submit plans for large-scale layoffs by March 13.
Here are details of some of the layoffs at federal departments and agencies gleaned by Reuters reporters.
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.
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.
VOICE OF AMERICA
More than 1,300 Voice of America employees were placed on leave on March 15, Michael Abramowitz, the U.S. government-funded outlet’s director, said in a post on LinkedIn.
The cuts were part of a gutting of the outlet’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which terminated its grants to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.
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.
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
The Pentagon says it will cut 5,400 jobs. The cuts are a fraction of the 50,000 job losses that some had anticipated, but they might not be the last. Darin Selnick, a top Pentagon official, said the agency will implement a hiring freeze and could 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.
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
The tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service 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, meaning up to 25,000 will lose their jobs.
The target includes the roughly 5,000 IRS employees who took buyouts in February and potentially 7,000 probationary workers who were fired, though court rulings on March 13 could lead to reinstatement of probationary staff, the person said.
The planned job cuts are being described internally as the first phase of the agency’s efforts to reduce the number of career workers, the person briefed on the matter said, indicating there could be additional cuts after May 15.
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 been 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 U.S. Forest Service, a division of the Agriculture Department which manages millions of acres of national forests and grasslands, is firing 3,400 probationary employees, equal to 10% of its workforce, people familiar with the plans said.
The Department of Agriculture said it accidentally fired several employees working on the federal government’s response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak and that it was attempting to rescind those layoffs.
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, have also been fired, sources said.
The extent of layoffs across the Agriculture Department, which employs nearly 100,000 people, remained unclear.
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.
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
The Social Security Administration, the agency which 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.
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.
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 re-hired.
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 like 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 rise 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.
CUTS TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Johns Hopkins University said on March 13 it will slash over 2,000 jobs in the U.S. and abroad after the Trump administration terminated $800 million in grants. It marked the biggest layoff in the university’s history and involved 247 domestic U.S. workers for the academic institution and another 1,975 positions outside the U.S. in 44 countries.
COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the regulator charged with monitoring large national banks, told staff it was firing 76 probationary employees. In 2024, the OCC reported 3,630 fulltime employees, according to its website.
CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU
The independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, responsible for consumer protection against banks, debt collectors and other companies in the financial sector, has been largely shuttered after the Trump administration ordered it to halt all activity.
Roughly 140 to 200 of the agency’s probationary and so-called term employees have been fired, people familiar with the matter said.
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
Career employees at the General Services Administration have begun to receive termination notices and the GSA is expected to shutter many regional offices.
GSA leaders have told staff that total spending is expected to be cut across all programs by about 50%, according to an email seen by Reuters.
The independent agency, which manages the government’s real estate portfolio and oversees most government contracts, has more than 12,000 workers.
OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
All probationary employees at the Office of Personnel Management, which handles human resources for the U.S. government, were fired in a group call that included around 100 people, sources said.
OPM has also started to fire career staff, eliminating its entire procurement team and gutting a group overseeing the handling of sensitive employee data within the agency, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration laid off 4% of its staff, a spokesperson said. Under former President Joe Biden, the agency grew by 30% and remains considerably larger after the cuts.
Its workforce was about 800 before the job cuts.
SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
At least 45 probationary employees at the Small Business Administration were fired in a letter seen by Reuters. The agency, which employs several thousand people, provides support for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Val Volcovici, Humeyra Pamuk, Douglas Gillison, Leah Douglas, Tim Gardner, David Shepardson, Nathan Layne and Tim Reid; Editing by Ross Colvin, Nick Zieminski and Howard Goller)
