{"id":276113,"date":"2025-10-04T02:58:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T02:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/276113\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T02:58:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T02:58:21","slug":"america-will-see-its-largest-mass-resignation-in-history-as-100000-federal-workers-are-set-to-quit-their-jobs-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/276113\/","title":{"rendered":"America will see its largest mass resignation in history as 100,000 federal workers are set to quit their jobs today"},"content":{"rendered":"

While many U.S. workers cling to their paychecks<\/a> as the job market is rocked by AI-related headcount cuts<\/a> and dwindling opportunities<\/a>, federal employees in the thousands are willfully walking out the door.<\/p>\n

Today, America will experience its largest mass resignation in history, as 100,000 federal workers are set to formally quit their jobs. It\u2019s a result of the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cfork in the road\u201d Deferred Resignation Program<\/a> (DRP) that staffers have taken up over previous months, who were allowed to transfer their workload and go on administrative leave until the official end date of federal service on Sept. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) tells Fortune that about 154,000 federal workers in total took the deal, with the majority leaving today and others exiting by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

It claims that the large-scale cut will save about $28 billion annually by lowering long-term spending. OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover tells Fortune that the administration delivered on its end of the employment bargain, and that no previous administration has been \u201ceven close to saving American taxpayers this amount of money in such a short amount of time.\u201d A Senate analysis from<\/a> July reports that the DRP program was set to cost $14.8 billion to pay the wages and benefits of around 200,000 federal workers taking up to eight months of leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, the deferred resignation program was not only legal, it provided over 150,000 civil servants a dignified and generous departure from the federal government. It also delivered incredible relief to the American taxpayer,\u201d Pinover says.<\/p>\n

The resignations are taking effect as Congress faces a deadline today to authorize more funding or risk a<\/a> U.S. government shutdown. If no deal is reached, then the White House has instructed federal agencies\u2014already rocked by Elon Musk\u2019s DOGE layoffs<\/a> since January\u2014to make way for even larger cuts.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s decline of 300,000 federal workers\u2014a stark contrast to white-collar employees \u2018job-hugging\u2019<\/p>\n

The U.S. federal workforce has been shrinking since President Trump retook office in January. His administration has been adamant on reducing inefficiencies, setting up<\/a> the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) helmed by<\/a> Tesla<\/a> CEO Musk<\/a>, which originally promised<\/a> to oversee<\/a> an elimination of $2 trillion in government waste, fraud, and abuse. Musk later reassessed his estimate down to $150 billion.<\/p>\n

In February, 2 million U.S. government employees received an email<\/a> from OPM detailing options for them to resign. The message was titled \u201ca fork in the road\u201d\u2014a term tied to the DRP plan and the same subject line Musk sent out to workers when he took over the social media platform Twitter, now called X. The message to federal staffers offered employees the option to step down and receive payment through the end of September, when the resignation goes into effect. In the meantime, virtually all USAID employees were laid off, after thousands had already been let go because of the administration\u2019s foreign aid freeze.<\/p>\n

But USAID wasn\u2019t the only government agency that was hit by layoffs. Workers in DEI-related roles were also put on paid leave to eventually be let go, and Musk also targeted the Treasury Department. The Partnership of Public Service estimated that DOGE could cost taxpayers roughly $135 billion<\/a> to fire, rehire, and put employees on leave. In just the first five months of this year, the federal government was slimmed down<\/a> by about 59,000 employees, and there\u2019s a collective estimate<\/a> that there will be about 300,000 fewer government workers by the end of this year. It\u2019s the biggest federal workforce reduction in a single year since WWII. This includes a combination of laid-off employees, probationary staffers, alongside those who took the resignation deal.<\/p>\n

The mass resignation is in stark contrast to white-collar employees \u201cjob-hugging,\u201d but the government staffers\u2019 willingness to leave may be due in part to the corroding work atmosphere at federal agencies. Since DOGE\u2019s swift job cuts, staffers have described an environment of \u201cfear\u201d and \u201cmadness,\u201d with one employee at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) telling<\/a> the Guardian that the buyout emails were \u201cclearly designed to disturb and scare people, among all of the things they actually say, which are clear threats.\u201d For some, choosing to resign was an option to not prolong the anxiety of a probable firing, while being able to take advantage of the deal and look for private sector work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am concerned we will all be mass fired,\u201d a U.S. Department of Transportation staffer, who was put on a probationary term appointment, told the Guardian<\/a> in February. \u201cTeams would be hobbled and gutted. It would be like closing your eyes and randomly throwing acid on a flower garden. You would just have dead spots, and no planning for which ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are you a U.S. federal worker who took the resignation deal? We\u2019d like to hear why! Reach out at\u00a0emma.burleigh@fortune.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While many U.S. workers cling to their paychecks as the job market is rocked by AI-related headcount cuts…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":276114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[24729,142789,64,29619,79,142790,17176,142788,17177,26753,52976,10862,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-276113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-administrative-leave","9":"tag-american-taxpayers","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-drp","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-elon-musks-doge","14":"tag-federal-employees","15":"tag-federal-service","16":"tag-federal-workers","17":"tag-office-of-personnel-management","18":"tag-previous-administration","19":"tag-resignation","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115313659311698317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276113","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=276113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}