The ranks of US authorities employees fell for a fourth straight month in April with non-postal employment falling by 8,500 as President Trump and adviser Elon Musk purpose for drastic cuts within the federal workforce.
With the newest reductions, reported on Friday within the month-to-month nonfarm payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, federal authorities non-US Postal Service employment has declined by greater than 23,000 to this point this 12 months.
That makes Trump essentially the most aggressive president in chopping the federal workforce since Ronald Reagan, who oversaw a discount of about 46,000 in early 1981.
Together with postal employees, federal civilian employment fell by 9,000 in April and has declined by 26,000 to this point in 2025.
The White Home, citing a media report, on Thursday stated 200,000 federal employees had been laid off since Trump took workplace and put Tesla CEO Musk on the helm of the cost-cutting Division of Authorities Effectivity tasked with thinning the ranks of presidency employees.
DOGE itself has not offered its personal figures.
Greater than 75,000 federal employees have agreed to a type of buyout referred to as deferred retirement, however they are going to stay on authorities payrolls till later this 12 months.
In all, over 260,000 federal employees have been fired, taken buyouts or retired early, in accordance with a Reuters tally.
The web betting web site Kalshi at present predicts Trump and Musk will reduce about 300,000 federal employees by 12 months finish from a workforce that exceeded 2.4 million on the finish of 2024, in accordance with BLS knowledge.
Ought to Trump’s cuts come near that, they’d rank as the most important reductions to begin a brand new presidency since BLS began monitoring federal employment in 1950, exceeding the present document of 195,000 throughout Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first 12 months in 1953.
