Government Executive has gathered data on the number of layoffs, RIFs, and firings in various federal agencies. These cuts of employees are supposed to make government more efficient, but they are so haphazard that government is likely to be less efficient. The data are current as of March 28.
The cuts are expected to help fund massive tax cuts for the richest Americans.
A President Trump executive order and subsequent guidance from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management has to plan for the “maximum elimination” of federal agency functions not required by law. As a starting point for the cuts, OMB and OPM said, agencies should focus on employees whose jobs are not required in statute and who face furloughs in government shutdowns—typically around one-third of the federal workforce, or 700,000 employees.
Agencies are expected to eliminate some offices wholesale and slash their regional offices across the country.
Here are the departments and agencies where Government Executive has confirmed RIFs have taken place or about to occur. We will update as we learn more. More in-depth reporting is linked where available:
Commerce Department: Commerce is seeking to cut its workforce by 20%, or nearly 10,000 employees, but plans to use attrition, incentives and other measures to get to that level without RIFs.
Defense Department: Defense plans to issue RIFs in the coming weeks for 5% to 8% of its civilian workforce, or as many as 61,000 employees. It will fire 5,400 probationary employees as part of those cuts.
Education Department: Education has laid off one-third of its workforce, or about 1,300 employees. The notices went out on March 11 and the department closed its offices on March 12 for the day. Education previously offered buyouts of up to $25,000 to most of its employees, who had until March 3 at 11:59 p.m. to accept the offer. About 300 employees accepted those and combined with other voluntary separations, Education’s total workforce is set to be about half the size it was before Trump took office.
Environmental Protection Agency: RIFs began to take shape at EPA on March 11 when agency Administrator Lee Zeldin eliminated offices related to environmental justice and diversity. Those were expected to impact around 170 employees. President Trump said during a cabinet meeting that he expected 65% of the workforce, or nearly 11,000 employees, to be let go. An EPA spokesperson declined to verify that number, saying only that Trump and Zeldin are “in lock step” to find efficiencies in government and those efforts would include “organizational improvements to the personnel structure.” A White House spokesperson subsequently told Politico Trump meant to say EPA would slash 65% of its “wasteful spending.”
Federal Trade Commission: FTC dismissed around a dozen employees on Feb. 28, impacting its Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Office of Public Affairs and Office of Technology.
Open the link to see reports on the cuts in more departments and agencies.

When Defense RIFs a thousand civil servants, it hires two thousand contractors. OPM has publishes a by-agency count of employees each year. There’s no central source for contractor headcount.
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This is madness. It’s all about privatization.
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And privatization is all about money. Speaking of money, who are they paying to remove American citizens from the voting rolls and who is paying them to do it? In 1952, I was born in (and have continued to live in) a blue city in a blue state and I’ve been a registered voter (and voted regularly) since I was 18 years old. However, after I submitted something online to my state today, I was informed that I am not listed as a registered voter now! I was shocked by that and I don’t believe it could have just happened all by itself.
I think now that, these days, regardless of where they live, citizens are going to have to make sure they’re still listed as registered voters. What a surefire indicator of a declining democracy.
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ECE, they have more tricks than that. Near the end of the campaign,Trump boasted that Musk knows more about how the voting machines work than anyone else.
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I hadn’t heard that but I’m not surprised.
I find it very frustrating that Musk keeps getting away with paying big bucks to people so they’ll vote for MAGAt politicians –and now judges. How can that be legal? Could the founding fathers have just not thought that could possibly happen? Maybe it was too challenging to imagine, but I think that even if Musk paid $1 million dollars to each of the 77 million people who voted for tRump in 2024, that would have really been just a drop in the bucket for someone as wealthy as he is, so a viable option for him.
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Ahh, his $400 billion fell to $200 billion because people aren’t buying Tesla cars.
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The Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed its entire staff on administrative leave.
The IMLS is a relatively small federal agency, with around 70 employees, that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United States.
According to a statement from AFGE Local 3403, which represents IMLS workers, the agency’s staff was notified by email about being placed on paid administrative leave for 90 days after a “brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership.” Employees had to turn in government property, and email accounts were disabled.
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/nx-s1-5334415/doge-institute-of-museum-and-library-services
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IMLS is a small agency with a small budget. Its grants are a lifeline for libraries and museums.
Question: why aren’t any of Elon Musk’s multi-billion contracts being cut?
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I’m guessing he was promised the job he got running DOGE precisely so that he could make sure virtually all contracts are considered unnecessary and eliminated except his own…
It’s just too damn weird to me to read about Musk being “cash poor,” like here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2019/12/04/why-elon-musk-is-cash-poor-for-a-billionaire/
To get some perspective on this: been there, done that. I’ve been very fortunate to have grown up first in a comfortable middle income family, then after my parents divorced and my mom remarried, in an upper middle income family. I learned to be grateful for the privileged life I had, as well as the importance of caring about less fortunate folks who struggle daily through no fault of their own.
For a large part of my career, I struggled personally with being cash poor myself, because I taught primarily at non-union child care centers and schools in minimum wage jobs (that required college degrees), where I was needed mostly because I specialized in teaching America’s youngest children –most of whom required all day programs so their moms could work. That was back when minimum wage was ridiculously low and unlivable in big cities. So I know what it means to have no money left for food, let alone anything to save, and having to throw your hard earned cash down the rent toilet your whole life.
For Musk, cash poor is primarily a result of borrowing heavily –which sounds a lot like the financial issues his boss has faced, and who never the less managed to live a very opulent lifestyle (probably due to Russian oligarchs.) For Musk, it might have meant not being able to have EVERY single mansion he wanted to purchase, but unlike genuinely poor people, at least he could probably leverage his assets and obtain mortgages.
That’s a far cry from not being able to afford eggs and bread, which have been indicators of poverty throughout the ages –and persists for way too many people today –across the globe. But both those guys could not care less about people’s struggles for basic survival, neither here nor abroad.
Thank goodness most folks on this blog care. Gratitude, along with experience and perspective, can be everything.
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Correction: Sorry, I misspoke when I said “I specialized in teaching America’s youngest children,” because many of the kids I taught here were foreign born, (and from a wide variety of different countries) not American citizens. (I also worked with young children in another country.)
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BTW, GO CORY BOOKER! And Brad S. in Wisconsin reminds me of some guy playing a perp on NYPD. CBK
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The law covers this. Everything is covered in plain English -> Resistance Requires Action:
Nationwide Tesla Tailgate Parties!
Form a long line visiting a Tesla dealer. If asked why by an officer – you wish to drive by as a public protest on a public drive no differently than protesting on a public sidewalk. Remain on the road that runs by or into the lot if that remains open. As traffic backs up, people will overshoot the back of the line. They will need to use their turn signal to legally slow down. Cars cannot simply park across a road without risking arrest. Be sure your turn signal is on and you are moving, ever so slowly.
One need not say one is there to protest, especially if there is significant tension in the air. Be pragmatic. If there is any negativity then if asked you should consider responding that you are there to consider future car purchases. Then stop talking -> You are clearly a valid car purchaser because you are in one – end the discussion. Smile.
Aim for peak traffic times. Bring emergency gas for others if you have a truck. Water, food. Good tunes. Windows open. Visit Elon as personally as you can just as he has done to all of us. Act.
(1) There was no approval given to Elon by any of the 3 branches of Government.
(2) It is unconstitutional and thus a federal crime and illegal to interfere in an election by offering money for votes under the 12 amendment.
Get in your CAR in the mornings, afternoons and evenings. Enjoy FREEDOM. Once you arrive at an Elon related establishment, near or far – You have officially become a Freedom FIGHTER in a way that no one can ever take from you and that you can share with others and be proud of. Grab the keys. Be careful with drinking too much water. If asked by an officer why you got in and out of the line so many times, (so fifty people seemed like 500) – you had to pee. Nature called… is calling…
Be brave.
You got this –>
Make Democracy Happen! – Again!
MAKE GOOD TROUBLE!
ACT!
Have you heard of the “Resistance website of Jayapal?” Google it. #ScienceMatters #TruthMatters #PoliticsMatters #FreedomMatters #FreeSpeachMatters #BooksMatter #TheUSConstitutionMatters #WordsMatter #EducationMatters #MoralityMatters #EmpathyMatters
Do you think being W.O.K.E. (Welcoming Open & Kind to Everyone) is ruining America?
No?
Then grab those keys. (Very) Seriously.
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“Do you think that “W.O.K.E. (Welcoming Open & Kind to Everyone). is ruining America?”
Quite the opposite. I LOVE it! I think it’s what made the America I was growing up in BECOME great for more than just white males.
The move by the malignant narcissist and his MAGAts to go back to being a nation that supports the exclusive rights and dominance of other groups by white men is an abhorrent regression. I think history is not likely to look very favorably upon that in the future, since it means over-valuing one population, discounting the worth of others and rescinding the hard earned rights of many people who deserve to be treated equally –or equitably, when injustices that prevent people from being successful prevail.
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