Who Got Cut: The DOGE
Workforce Reduction

📊The Numbers

Between January and November 2025, the federal government recorded 335.2K separations and only 118K new hires. That's a net loss of 217.2K positions — driven by hiring freezes, early retirement incentives, and outright RIFs.

New hiring dropped 54% while separations surged 67%. The government didn't just shrink through attrition — the door out was wide open while the door in was locked.

🪓Reductions in Force

RIFs — involuntary layoffs — jumped from 46 in all of FY2024 to 10.7K in 2025. That's a 233x increase. HHS and USAID alone accounted for over 8,000 RIFs.

For historical context: between 2020 and 2023, total annual RIFs across the entire federal government were in the single digits. See the full DOGE impact analysis for monthly trends.

🏛️Hardest-Hit Agencies

As a percentage of workforce, the Department of Education lost nearly 80% of its employees. USAID was effectively dismantled. But in raw numbers, the largest agencies — VA, Treasury, Agriculture — shed the most positions.

The top 10 agencies by net loss tell a similar story:

Treasury lost 25,000 net positions — mostly IRS employees. Whether that means fewer audits of the wealthy or less bureaucratic overhead depends on which positions were cut.

🚪How People Left

Most departures weren't forced layoffs. The majority were voluntary — quits and retirements — though many were influenced by the chaotic environment, hiring freezes, and the "deferred resignation" program that offered employees a paid exit through September 2025.

The "deferred resignation" program, announced in early 2025, offered federal employees a chance to resign with pay through the end of the fiscal year. While exact participation numbers are difficult to isolate from OPM data, the surge in voluntary separations beginning in February 2025 suggests significant uptake.

For a detailed breakdown by separation type, see the separations dashboard or drill into specific types like quits, retirements, and RIFs.

📅The Monthly Timeline

The reductions didn't happen all at once. January looked normal. Then the freeze hit.

September 2025 saw 125,589 separations in a single month — more than the prior five months combined. The end-of-fiscal-year deadline created a mass exodus.

⚖️What It Means

Right-sizing government means making hard choices. The data shows exactly where the cuts landed — now the question is whether services deteriorated or taxpayers got a better deal.

Some reductions were clearly surgical: USAID and the Department of Education were targeted for ideological and policy reasons. Others were blunt: Treasury and Agriculture lost tens of thousands through hiring freezes and attrition, with less regard for which specific positions were essential.

The September cliff — where deferred resignations, early retirements, and end-of-fiscal-year deadlines converged — suggests many employees chose to leave on their own terms rather than wait for the axe. That's not necessarily a bad outcome, but it means the government lost people it didn't choose to lose.

The hardest part of government reform isn't cutting — it's cutting the right things. The data shows the scale. The question is whether it was precise.

Dive deeper: DOGE Impact · State Impact · States · Agency Risk Scores