In a provocative move, President Donald Trump is offering most federal workers a buyout option: leave your government job by next week in exchange for eight months of severance pay. The offer represents one of the boldest steps Trump has taken so far in his bid to reshape the federal government.
The buyout offer was outlined in a memorandum issued by the Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday, in keeping with a campaign promise by Trump to shrink the size of the government. The memo said all federal employees would be held to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct,” which could foreshadow further downsizing.
An email to millions of federal workers says employees opting for voluntary departure must decide to leave by February 6 to get the severance package. Katie Miller, a member of the advisory board for the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on X that the email has been sent to more than two million federal employees.
As of November, the federal government employed more than three million people, or nearly 1.9 percent of the nation’s civilian workforce, according to the Pew Research Center. The average length of service for a federal employee approaches 12 years, according to OPM.
One senior administration official estimated to NBC News that the White House anticipates between 5 to 10 percent of federal employees may take the buyout, potentially freeing up approximately $100 billion. Yet even a fraction of departing workers could wreak havoc on the economy and disrupt how the federal government serves people around the country.
The American Federation of Government Employees union, in a statement on the buyout offers, urged its members not to consider them as purely voluntary. It called them strong-arm tactics designed to persuade employees not sufficiently loyal to the new administration to quit.
Purging the federal government of dedicated career employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government,” Kelley said. He said he was concerned with the approach of the administration, saying it creates a hostile work environment in which employees are forced to quit.
The message to federal employees shared similarities with an email sent to Twitter employees when Musk took over the platform in late 2022, which also asked employees if they wanted to stay with the company. Musk, who spent over $270 million to back Trump and other Republican candidates in the recent elections, has been named to head up the new Department of Government Efficiency.
