Furloughs, RIFs and Terminations

So what is going on with the massive firings of government employees under the Trump administration? Taking my own advice, I started researching how many employees have been fired and from what agencies. Just how many federal employees are there?

According to a January 2025 report by the Pew Research Center (well worth reading), there are about 2.4 million federal employees, which is about 1.5% of the entire civilian workforce. This number excludes the 600,000 for the US Postal Service, an independent federal agency with semiautonomous status, and some 1.3 million active duty military who are not considered "employees".

The agency employing the most people is the Department of Veterans Affairs with more than 486,000 while the smallest is the Department of Eduction with around 4,245 employees.

The Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, was an initiative started by President Donald Trump in Janary 2025. It is estimated that between 290,000 to 300,000 government employees have been terminated. The numbers do not reflect job losses that have been put on temporary hold due to legal challenges or early buyouts. An estimated 77,000 employees accepted the Deferred Resignation Program, which allowed them to resign immediately with pay and benefits for eight months.

All of these cuts only account are about 10% - 12% of the government workforce.

Some cuts have been since rescinded due to the nature of work being performed, ie, employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration (Department of Energy), the Federal Aviation Administration (Department of Transportation) and the Department of Agriculture (workers involved in the bird flu epidemic).

With the October government shutdown in progress, the Trump administration had plans to lay off roughly 4,000 more government employees. However, layoffs are currently paused due to a court order.

Heaviest targeted in these latest cuts were the Department of Education, with cuts of 466 employees; the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 442 employees; the Department of Commerce, 315 employees; the Department of Energy, 187 employees; and the Department of Homeland Security, 176 employees.

So where are we now? Are we leaner and meaner or awkwardly staffed for one good disaster? Time will tell.

Sources:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/07/what-the-data-says-about-federal-workers/#how-many-federal-workers-are-there
https://www.fedscope.opm.gov/
https://virginiabusiness.com/report-doge-responsible-for-nearly-290k-job-cuts
https://federalworkerrights.com/2025/07/08/what-does-the-supreme-courts-rif-decision-mean-for-mass-layoffs-in-the-federal-government/
https://nypost.com/2025/10/11/us-news/shutdown-layoffs-affecting-more-than-4000-federal-workers-begin/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_mass_layoffs/
https://www.statista.com/chart/34005/reported-layoffs-federal-workers/