❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimated that efforts to reduce the federal workforce would lead to 300,000 layoffs by year-end.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: OPM Director Scott Kupor and the Trump administration.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The estimate was shared on Thursday, August 14, 2025.
🎯IMPACT: The administration targets a 12.5 percent reduction in the federal workforce, with most reductions coming from voluntary buyouts.
A new report from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimates that President Donald J. Trump‘s efforts to cut government waste and federal redundancies will result in an estimated 300,000 federal workers being laid off by the end of the year. According to OPM Director Scott Kupor, 80 percent of the workforce reduction number stems from personnel accepting voluntary buyouts, while 20 percent is the result of direct layoffs.
The Trump White House says its goal is a 12.5 percent reduction in the federal workforce. It has offered two rounds of buyouts so far. An initial round in February resulted in 75,000 federal employees accepting the offer, and a second round was offered in April.
Democrat-backed legal challenges to the buyouts and layoffs have been largely unsuccessful. Earlier this year, Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole ruled against unions seeking to block the buyouts, stating they lack standing in the legal challenge. Additionally, Judge O’Toole determined his court lacked jurisdiction even to hear the matter.
Meanwhile, in July, jobs data showed that between January and May, the total number of government jobs in the Washington, D.C. area had been slashed by 22,000. The layoffs appear to have substantially accelerated after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a lower court order earlier last month that had blocked the Trump administration from cutting workforces across 19 federal departments and agencies.
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