US federal employment drops again as DOGE cuts stack up

(Reuters) -The ranks of U.S. authorities workers fell for a 4th consecutive period successful April with non-postal employment falling by 8,500 arsenic President Donald Trump and advisor Elon Musk purpose for drastic cuts successful the national workforce.

With the latest reductions, reported connected Friday successful the monthly nonfarm payrolls study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, national authorities non-U.S. Postal Service employment has declined by much than 23,000 truthful acold this year. That makes Trump the astir assertive president successful cutting the national workforce since Ronald Reagan, who oversaw a simplification of astir 46,000 successful aboriginal 1981.

Including postal workers, national civilian employment fell by 9,000 successful April and has declined by 26,000 truthful acold successful 2025.

The White House, citing a media report, connected Thursday said 200,000 national workers had been laid disconnected since Trump took bureau and enactment Tesla CEO Musk astatine the helm of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency tasked with thinning the ranks of authorities workers. DOGE itself has not provided its ain figures.

More than 75,000 national workers person agreed to a signifier of buyout called deferred retirement, but they volition stay connected authorities payrolls until aboriginal this year. In all, implicit 260,000 national workers person been fired, taken buyouts oregon retired early, according to a Reuters tally.

The online betting tract Kalshi presently predicts Trump and Musk volition chopped astir 300,000 national workers by twelvemonth extremity from a workforce that exceeded 2.4 cardinal astatine the extremity of 2024, according to BLS data.

Should Trump's cuts travel adjacent to that, they would fertile arsenic the largest reductions to commencement a caller presidency since BLS started tracking national employment successful 1950, exceeding the existent grounds of 195,000 during Dwight D. Eisenhower's archetypal twelvemonth successful 1953.

(Reporting By Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)