Donald Trump’s White House will purge around 300,000 federal workers this year as part of his ambitious bid to streamline the civil service.
The massive cull represents a 12.5 percent cut to the workforce, which Trump has complained is bloated and inefficient.
Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor said 80 percent of those workers would leave voluntarily and only 20 percent would be fired.
The figure is almost double the amount of workers reported to have taken buyouts last month.
Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump launched a massive campaign to downsize the 2.4-million strong federal civilian workforce.
The Trump administration began emailing thousands of federal employees in January, giving them the opportunity to voluntarily leave their government positions while still being paid for several months.
‘I cannot force people to lay people off,’ Kupor said in an interview in Washington on Thursday.
He said he would have to persuade cabinet secretaries to buy into his vision of government efficiency.
The comments stand in contrast to the initial months of Trump’s second term when OPM leadership explicitly instructed agencies to let go of employees new to their positions, as per a court filing.
Donald Trump’s White House aims to eliminate about 300,000 federal positions in 2025, marking a 12.5 percent reduction—one of the president’s key objectives for his second term.
Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor said 80% of those workers would leave voluntarily and only 20% would be fired
If Kupo’s forecasts are correct, those departing from the federal workforce will more than double the 5.9 percent decrease seen in fiscal year 2023, according to the latest data from the non-profit Partnership for Public Service.
Kupor declined to share headcount statistics for individual government agencies. He said OPM will publish the figures later.
Agencies will present their cutback plans to White House Budget Director Russ Vought, as the president gears up for his next budget proposal to Congress, Kupor noted. He mentioned meeting with the budget office on Wednesday.
The email sent out in January was linked to President Donald Trump’s executive order demanding federal employees return to the office.
An email was sent to federal employees offering them a package and the choice to voluntarily leave the federal workforce before the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency started locating potential areas for cuts.
‘At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency, but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions,’ the email, titled ‘Fork in the Road’, read.
To take the deal, employees were told to type the word ‘resign’ into the subject line of their response.
The ‘majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force,’ according to the email.
Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump launched a massive campaign to downsize the 2.4-million strong federal civilian workforce, which he says is bloated and inefficient
A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management said the employees who accept the terms were being offered the chance to go on administrative leave through Sept. 30 at full pay.
Many federal employees eye leaving their jobs amid Donald Trump’s takeover in Washington, D.C. – as the new Trump administration has fired top Justice Department officials who worked on his criminal prosecution and placed other senior administration members on paid leave.
The president ordered his agencies to create, implement and enforce return-to-office orders that would require the entire federal workforce to come back to the office full-time.
Others have been reassigned to direct their efforts against so-called sanctuary cities amid Trump’s immigration crackdown.
DOGE official Katie Miller confirmed the email was going to 2 million federal workers.
An OPM memo dated January 28 reviewed by Daily Mail describes the option as ‘deferred resignation’ which exempts employees from the requirement to return to the office.
Employees who accept it, ‘should promptly have their duties reassigned or eliminated and be placed on paid administrative leave until the end of the deferred resignation period,’ states the letter, from Charles Ezell, acting director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
It carves out an exception for when an agency head determines ‘that it is necessary for the employee to be actively engaged in transitioning job duties, in which case employees should be placed on administrative leave as soon as those duties are transitioned.’
It amounts to nearly a doubling of the 154,000 workers reported top have taken buyouts last month
‘If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason).’
Democrats and a powerful union called it an effort to try to dupe employees, or pressure them to leave to make way for Trump loyalists.
An administration official told Daily Mail the program could save up to $100 billion, but the the White House has not put forward information on how it got to the figure.
Officials are predicting up to 10 percent of the workforce could take the deal for a delayed resignation.
