{"id":250607,"date":"2025-09-24T03:55:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T03:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250607\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T03:55:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T03:55:16","slug":"white-house-rehires-hundreds-of-employees-terminated-by-doge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250607\/","title":{"rendered":"White House rehires hundreds of employees terminated by DOGE"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk\u2019s cost-cutting blitz<\/a> are being asked to return to work. <\/p>\n

The General Services Administration has given the employees \u2014 who managed government workspaces \u2014 until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs \u2014 passed along to taxpayers \u2014 to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination<\/a> or were allowed to expire. <\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,\u201d said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said GSA has been in a \u201ctriage mode\u201d for months. He said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast. <\/p>\n

Rehiring of purged federal employees<\/p>\n

GSA was established in the 1940s to centralize the acquisition and management of thousands of federal workplaces. Its return to work request mirrors rehiring efforts at in several agencies targeted by DOGE. Last month, the IRS said it would allow some employees who took a resignation offer to remain on the job.<\/a> The Labor Department has also brought back some employees who took buyouts, while the National Park Service earlier reinstated a number of purged employees.<\/p>\n

Critical to the work of such agencies is the GSA, which manages many of the buildings. Starting in March, thousands of GSA employees left the agency as part of programs that encouraged them to resign or take early retirement. Hundreds of others \u2014 those subject to the recall notice \u2014 were dismissed as part of an aggressive push to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Though those employees did not show up for work, some continue to get paid. <\/p>\n

GSA representatives didn\u2019t respond to detailed questions about the return-to-work notice, which the agency issued Friday. They also declined to discuss the agency\u2019s headcount, staffing decisions or the potential cost overruns generated by reversing its plans to terminate leases.<\/p>\n

\u201cGSA\u2019s leadership team has reviewed workforce actions and is making adjustments in the best interest of the customer agencies we serve and the American taxpayers,\u201d an agency spokesman said in an email.<\/p>\n

Democrats have assailed the Trump administration\u2019s indiscriminate approach to slashing costs and jobs. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona, the top Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing the GSA, told AP there is no evidence that reductions at the agency \u201cdelivered any savings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s created costly confusion while undermining the very services taxpayers depend on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

DOGE identified the agency, which had about 12,000 employees at the start of the Trump administration, as a chief target of its campaign<\/a> to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government.<\/p>\n

A small cohort of Musk\u2019s trusted aides embedded in GSA\u2019s headquarters, sometimes sleeping on cots on the agency\u2019s sixth floor<\/a>, and pursued plans to abruptly cancel nearly half of the 7,500 leases in the federal portfolio. DOGE also wanted GSA to sell hundreds of federally owned buildings with the goal of generating billions in savings.<\/p>\n

GSA started by sending more than 800 lease cancellation notices<\/a> to landlords, in many cases without informing the government tenants. The agency also published a list of hundreds of government buildings that were targeted for sale.<\/p>\n

DOGE\u2019s massive job cuts produced little savings<\/p>\n

Pushback to GSA\u2019s dumping of its portfolio was swift, and both initiatives have been dialed back. More than 480 leases slated for termination by DOGE have since been spared. Those leases were for offices scattered around the country that are occupied by such agencies as the IRS, Social Security Administration and Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

DOGE\u2019s \u201cWall of Receipts,\u201d which once boasted that the lease cancellations alone would save nearly $460 million, has since reduced that estimate to $140 million by the end of July, according to Becker, the former GSA real estate official.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, GSA embarked on massive job cuts. The administration slashed GSA\u2019s headquarters staff by 79%, its portfolio managers by 65% and facilities managers by 35%, according to a federal official briefed on the situation. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the media, provided the statistics on condition of anonymity. <\/p>\n

As a result of the internal turmoil, 131 leases expired without the government actually vacating the properties, the official said. The situation has exposed the agencies to steep fees because property owners have not been able to rent out those spaces to other tenants. <\/p>\n

The public may soon get a clearer picture of what transpired at the agency. <\/p>\n

The Government Accountability Office, an independent congressional watchdog, is examining the GSA\u2019s management of its workforce, lease terminations and planned building disposals and expects to issue findings in the coming months, said David Marroni, a senior GAO official.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk\u2019s cost-cutting blitz are being…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,132749,132748,12785,17420,84,69,66,57,132746,7776,110597,63,606,80,4329,618,89,132747,61,67,370,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-250607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-chad-becker","10":"tag-david-marroni","11":"tag-dc-wire","12":"tag-department-of-government-efficiency","13":"tag-district-of-columbia","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-elon-musk","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-greg-stanton-of-arizona","18":"tag-iowa","19":"tag-iowa-city","20":"tag-jobs-and-careers","21":"tag-labor","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-real-estate","24":"tag-taxes","25":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","26":"tag-u-s-general-services-administration","27":"tag-u-s-news","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-united-states-government","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115257260408312203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}