Tracking Efforts to Shrink the Size of the Federal Workforce: November 2025 Update
Deferred Resignations Now Reflected in the Jobs Numbers
The November jobs report released today is the first Employment Situation survey to include most of the deferred resignations—the program which offered federal employees the option to resign while continuing to receive pay and benefits until September 30, 2025. Early estimates had suggested that some 75,000 federal employees had accepted deferred resignation. After several rounds of deferred resignations were rolled out over the spring and summer, later estimates suggested that the total number of resignations could be more than 150,000.
As part of the agreement to pass a continuing resolution and reopen the government, Congress and the White House agreed to pause reductions in force (RIF)—the formal process agencies use to lay off federal employees. The pause is expected to last through the end of January, so we are likely to see a slowdown in workforce reduction numbers over the next two months.
What the numbers show
Today’s jobs report marks the nineth Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report to capture at least some of the workforce restructuring and agency-level staffing adjustments initiated after the new administration issued Executive Order (EO) 14210 on “Reforming the Federal Workforce to Better Serve Americans.”
As of November 2025, there were 2.74 million federal government workers, excluding active military personnel. However, 593,000 of those workers were Postal Service employees. Excluding Postal Service workers, there were 2.14 million federal government workers. This is a decline of 168,000 from September, and a total decline in the federal workforce of 259,000 this year.
With a decline in the federal workforce of 259,000, these reduction efforts have reversed a decade of government workforce growth in less than 1 year. The last time the federal workforce was this size was in early 2015.
Back-of-the-Envelope Fiscal Savings Estimate
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has data on the weighted average salary of all federal workers between September 30, 2024, and March 31, 2025. OPM data reveal that this average weighted salary is approximately $110,000. Prior Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis suggests that federal worker salary is only about 60% of total compensation including benefits, meaning total federal worker costs are around $183,000.
Given that 259,000 federal workers are no longer on government payrolls, annual fiscal savings are somewhere in the neighborhood of $47 billion.
Shrinking the Federal Workforce: Trump vs. Clinton
Reducing the number of federal employees by the same amount that the Clinton administration did during his first term would require shrinking the federal workforce to fewer than 2.08 million workers by 2028. Reducing the size of the federal workforce back to the Clinton-era lows of 1999 would require shrinking that number down to 1.88 million.
The first figure below shows the month-by-month comparison between workforce reductions under the Clinton administration and those under the current Trump administration. The second shows the Trump administration’s efforts so far in relation to the ultimate goal of matching the scale of Clinton’s cuts.
This series covers workforce reductions, agency restructuring efforts and any new policies or developments related to these initiatives. Stay tuned for regular updates on the Trump administration’s progress toward achieving its federal workforce reduction goals.
You can read my previous updates for February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.