Federal Agency Workforce Changes: Update for July 2025 to January 2026. GAO-26-108583 Published: Jun 17, 2026. Publicly Released: Jun 17, 2026. Full Report

Executive orders in 2025 aimed to reduce the federal workforce and restrict hiring in many areas. This is our second report on these workforce changes. The number of federal employees declined across all major agencies in 2025. Nearly 378,000 employees separated during this time and about 127,000 were hired. Most agencies had workforce declines greater than 10%, and multiple agencies had declines exceeding 30%. A website launched by the Office of Personnel Management in 2026 now provides monthly updates of agency workforce data and offers users a tool to create customized reports. Over the course of 2025, federal agencies took steps to reduce the size of their workforces in response to presidential directives. These steps included offering incentives for employees to voluntarily resign or retire, implementing reductions in force, and restricting hiring for most positions. Data reported by 22 major federal agencies showed that nearly 378,000 employees separated from these agencies during 2025. About 65 percent of those separations came in the second half of the year as employees who had taken a deferred resignation offer departed their agencies. By contrast, these agencies reported they hired a total of about 127,000 employees, including temporary employees, during the year. As a result of these actions and other factors, the total workforce across these agencies declined by nearly 256,000 employees—or more than 11 percent—from December 2024 to January 2026.