Official says only 20% of the reduction would be due to dismissals
The US government is expecting to drop around 300,000 workers this 2025, according to reports, amid President Donald Trump's aggressive reduction of the federal workforce.
Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, told Reuters that the administration will likely shed around 300,000 workers.
Among them, 80% would leave voluntarily while 20% would be fired.
"I cannot force people to lay people off," Kupor told Reuters in an interview.
The OPM director did not share the headcount statistics for affected employees, but noted that the office would publish them later, according to the report.
US federal workforce count
There are 2,289,472 federal civilian employees in the US as of 31 March, according to data released by the OPM in July.
This is a reduction of more than 23,000 positions from the previous 2,313,216 federal civilian employees on 30 September 2024.
According to the OPM, it is expecting "hundreds of thousands more workers" to be dropped from the government payroll by October once they depart under the Deferred Resignation Programme.
Trump earlier this year signed an Executive Order implementing the Department of Government Efficiency workforce optimisation initiative.
Its aim is to reduce the size of the government to "make the federal workforce more efficient and effective," adding that it contributes significantly to spending and debt.
"In fiscal year 2022, the federal government spent nearly $300 billion on compensation for civilian employees, excluding pensions," the White House said in a fact sheet.
In addition to layoffs, the government also ordered a hiring freeze this year that saw a nearly 70% drop in average new hires monthly.
According to OPM data, agencies averaged just 7,385 new hires per month once the freeze was implemented in February and March.
"This data marks the first measurable step toward President Trump's vision of a disciplined, accountable federal workforce and it's only the beginning," said former OPM Acting Director Chuck Ezell in a statement in July.
