The Trump administration has offered federal workers buyouts worth more than seven months’ salary if they would leave their jobs by 6 February as the White House attempts to slash the civil service in an unprecedented overhaul of US government.
The office of personnel management, the government’s human resources agency, sent a memo to the federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating, including a full-time return to the office for most employees. It also said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and warned that most agencies would be downsized.
“If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program,” the email reads. “This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6.”
The email includes a “deferred resignation letter” for federal employees who want to participate. Under the offer, they will retain all pay and benefits “regardless of daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30”.
Trump has pledged to radically remake government, including significantly shrinking the federal workforce and cutting trillions of dollars of spending – an agenda his administration is attempting to implement at breakneck speed.
Since Friday, the US president has fired a dozen independent federal government watchdogs, as well as Gwynne Wilcox, a senior official at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), who described her dismissal as “unprecedented and illegal”. On Monday, the administration moved to freeze all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government – an effort that a judge blocked on Tuesday.
The American Federation of Government Employees denounced the latest move. The union’s president, Everett Kelley, argued the offer was an effort to pressure workers who are not considered loyal to the new administration to leave their jobs – which could cause upheaval in federal programs.
“Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government,” Kelley said in a statement.
“Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”
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The mass departure of federal workers – from frontline healthcare workers in the veterans affairs department to the officials charged with processing loans for homebuyers or small businesses – could have sweeping consequences for Americans.
The US government is roughly the nation’s 15th-largest workforce with more than 3 million employees. Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that has guided much of Trump’s policy goals, calls for mass firings of federal workers and suggests replacing many of them with political appointees.
