The Department of Defense is planning to cut around 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs, as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to reduce the federal workforce and dismantle US agencies. Fewer than 21,000 workers who choose to quit voluntarily will leave in the coming months, according to a senior defence official, Associated Press reported.
The goal is part of a larger plan to cut 5% to 8% of the civilian workforce, which currently stands at over 900,000. To achieve this, the Pentagon plans to slash around 6,000 positions per month by not replacing workers who leave. The move has raised concerns that service members may be tapped to fill the empty civilian jobs by the hiring freeze.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, stated that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted to guarantee the cuts didn’t hurt military readiness. The official while recognising that ‘some’ military veterans will be among the civilians let go but declined to estimate how many, adding that it might be thousands.
“The number sounds high, but I would focus on the percentage, a 5% to 8% reduction is not a drastic one and Hegseth is confident can be done without negatively impacting readiness in order to make sure that our resources are allocated in the right direction,” said the official, ABC News reported.
The Department of Defense is using three methods to reduce its workforce which include – voluntary resignations, firing probationary workers and cutting jobs as employees leave. The official added that military services and Pentagon officials are reviewing personnel on a case-by-case basis to ensure that cuts do not affect important national security jobs.
Officials declined to reveal how many Defense Department civilians wanted the voluntary retirement option but did acknowledge that more requested it than were ultimately granted. According to the defence official, the ‘vast majority’ were permitted, but in a few cases, persons were denied for national security reasons or to prevent too many people from leaving one office.
He noted that Hegseth has also granted the secretaries of the military branches and Defense Department personnel heads the authority to grant exemptions to the employment freeze. The official further said that every year, an average of 70,000 civilians are hired, or around 6,000 every month, adding that it’s unclear how many of those 70,000 would be removed.
The department had also begun terminating 5,400 probationary civilian employees, which has now been halted by a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge.
The official said the 5,400 probationary employees had not been selected for termination “blindly based on the time they had been hired.” These employees “were documented as significantly underperforming in their job functions and or had misconduct on the record.”
It is uncertain whether all of the 5,400 probationary employees scheduled for termination fit into those categories. “The fact that someone was a probationary employee did not directly mean that they were going to be subject to removal,” he said.
“We are confident we could absorb those removals without detriment to our ability to continue the mission, and so that’s how we can be confident that we don’t need to worry about any resulting impact on the uniformed force,” the official added.