by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Washington D.C. Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Worthy News) – The federal workforce has fallen sharply since President Donald Trump returned to office, with newly released government data showing federal employment down approximately 11.2% since January 2025.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, federal government payroll employment declined from approximately 3.01 million workers in January 2025 to 2.674 million in August 2026—a net reduction of roughly 336,000 federal jobs.
Separate data from the Office of Personnel Management show 271,363 fewer federal employees since Trump took office on January 20, 2025, based on personnel records available through July.
The contraction follows a sweeping effort by the Trump administration to reduce the size of Washington’s bureaucracy. On his first day back in office, Trump imposed a federal hiring freeze and ordered officials to develop a plan to shrink the workforce through attrition and efficiency measures. A subsequent executive order instructed most agencies to hire no more than one employee for every four workers who departed, with exemptions for areas including national security, immigration enforcement, law enforcement and public safety.
OPM says the decline has been driven by a combination of the hiring freeze, early-retirement incentives, reductions in force and the administration’s Deferred Resignation Program.
The numbers represent one of the most substantial contractions of the federal civilian workforce in modern times and mark a significant step toward Trump’s longstanding pledge to reduce the size and reach of the federal bureaucracy.
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