Data Dive
How the Trump administration’s workforce cuts stack up against federal employment history
It’s too soon to see the full impacts of the Trump administration’s federal workforce reductions. But historical data show large swings in the last decade.
Given all of the Trump administration’s attempts to overhaul the federal workforce in the last several months, it’s no surprise that the numbers of federal employees working across government have shifted.
The Office of Personnel Management earlier this week published new federal workforce data showing preliminary employee numbers dating to March 2025. The dataset reflects some, but not all, of the workforce changes that took place in the tumultuous first few months of the Trump administration.
The March 2025 data show a roughly 23,700-employee decrease in the overall size of the federal workforce since last September. In a July 1 press release, OPM officials touted the drop as a result of the Trump administration’s reshaping of the federal workforce. The agency said the changes reflect “early efforts to streamline government and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.”
It’s too soon to tell how the current administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce will impact employment numbers in the long term. But the size of the federal workforce numbers has fluctuated significantly for well over a decade.
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Civilian federal workforce size, 2010-2025. (Data source: FedScope, Office of Personnel Management. Chart by Federal News Network)
While the March 2025 data trends do mark a decrease in the size of the workforce since September, the federal workforce a few months ago was still larger than it was a full year prior, according to historical data on FedScope. By the end of March 2025, there were 2,289,472 civilian federal employees — which is 10,742 more employees than there were working for the government in March 2024.
The federal employment decreases shown in the first few months of 2025 came at a time when the first round of the deferred resignation program was still open to feds. Agencies were also in the process of firing many of their probationary employees. And it was a few months into the governmentwide hiring freeze, affecting virtually all agencies’ recruitment numbers.
After all those efforts, OPM’s March 2025 data represent a roughly 1% decrease in the total size of the federal workforce since September — not counting military members or U.S. Postal Service employees.
Still, OPM’s March 2025 numbers don’t paint the full picture of how many employees have already left government. The dataset, for instance, still counts all employees currently on paid administrative leave as part of the federal workforce, including everyone who opted into the DRP. Those employees will remain on the government’s rolls until the end of the fiscal year.
By contrast, in 2023, the federal workforce experienced one of its largest employment surges in recent memory — increasing by nearly 70,000 employees between March and September alone. The increase came in part due to legislation that provided federal funding to hire for key federal roles, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
But moving forward, OPM now says it expects “hundreds of thousands more workers” to be moved off the government’s workforce tallies this October, after federal employees who opted into the DRP are officially separated from service.
It’s possible that after some more time, the numbers from those first few months of the administration could shift further. OPM noted that its March 2025 dataset is preliminary, and it’s still working with agencies to review their data submissions and ensure they represent the complete picture of the workforce.
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The Trump administration also hopes to see further reductions in the coming months, as it continues to challenge court orders that are keeping onboard many federal employees impacted by reductions in force and probationary terminations.
“The American people deserve a government that is lean, efficient and focused on core priorities,” OPM Acting Director Chuck Ezell said in a statement. “This data marks the first measurable step toward President Trumpʼs vision of a disciplined, accountable federal workforce and itʼs only the beginning.”
OPM is also in the process of updating the FedScope platform overall. The modernization project is expected to be completed this fall.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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