Internal White House document shows agencies preparing to cut between 8% and 50% of staff [View all]

While officials stressed the estimates were subject to change, the snapshot suggests how agencies are working to meet Trump’s mandate to shrink government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/27/federal-worker-layoffs-government-agencies/

https://archive.ph/qZzdA



Federal officials are preparing for agencies to cut between 8 and 50 percent of their employees in the first phase of a Trump administration push to shrink the federal government, according to an internal White House document obtained by The Washington Post that contains closely held draft plans for reshaping the 2.3-million-person bureaucracy.

The details are compiled from plans that President Donald Trump ordered agencies to submit, according to two people familiar with the document, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it. The numbers, which have not been released to the public, show what could be next for the efforts that Trump says will make government more accountable, but have also upended agency functions and triggered restraining orders from the courts.

The document covers 22 agencies and doesn’t have information in some categories. Several people familiar with the document stressed that planning remains fluid and that the numbers do not necessarily reflect what agencies will ultimately cut.

But it indicates that broad staff cuts are likely to have a significant impact on the scope of the government’s work. For example, the document lists the Department of Housing and Urban Development as cutting half of its roughly 8,300-person staff, while the Interior Department would shed nearly 1 in 4 of the workers it had when Trump took office, and the IRS would cut nearly 1 in 3.

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