Updated June 6, 2025 at 9:58 AM EDT
On his quest to dramatically shrink the federal workforce, President Trump has tried many things.
Through his Office of Personnel Management, he invited just about the entire 2 million-plus civilian workforce to resign in exchange for pay and benefits through September.
His administration tried firing more than 24,000 probationary employees, who are typically more recent hires but also include those with years of experience in their fields.
Trump also set in motion mass layoffs across the government, telling agencies to prioritize downsizing "all offices that perform functions not mandated by statute or other law."
But estimating how many federal employees are no longer in their jobs is complicated.
On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the federal government has shed 59,000 jobs since January — and 22,000 in May alone.
In a research note on the May jobs report, Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, attributed most of the drop to Trump's hiring freeze, "which is preventing many departing workers from being replaced, rather than active job cuts."
The Labor Department figures do not include employees on paid leave or those receiving some kind of severance — situations that many tens of thousands of federal employees find themselves in now.
At least 75,000 have taken the Trump administration's offer to resign with pay and benefits through September. And thousands more remain in a state of limbo as numerous lawsuits have blocked parts of Trump's agenda.
Sweeping overhaul of agencies blocked by courts
Even at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump has essentially dismantled, it's hard to say how many people are actually gone.
Much of what Trump has done, halting USAID's work and freezing international aid grants, has been challenged in court.
As a result, "most employees I believe are on some type of paid leave," says Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a legal organization that's filed 70 legal actions against the Trump administration since January, including over the shuttering of USAID.
So far, they've had some success with their lawsuits.
In one big case, a federal judge in San Francisco paused mass layoffs at about 20 different agencies, including at the Department of Health and Human Services, which had already issued layoff notices to about 10,000 people. Other agencies had drawn up plans to reduce their headcount by 40% or 50%.
Perryman acknowledges Trump can pursue a sweeping overhaul of government — as long as he follows the law.
"If you're going to decimate agencies that are fulfilling a purpose, a lawful purpose that Congress has mandated, that requires congressional approval," she says.
And, the judge in the case noted, Trump had not gotten that. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration's request for stay, and now the administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene. The government has argued that the president does not need special permission from Congress to direct agencies to use their statutory authority to conduct layoffs.
Trump uses an old tally of job departures
Even with mass layoffs on hold, there's been a lot of disruption to government functions. Thousands of federal employees are being paid to stay home while the courts consider their fate. Many who remain on the job say there's little they can do while they await new marching orders and a lifting of the hiring and spending freezes imposed by the Trump administration months ago.
Where Trump appears to have had the most success in downsizing is through his administration's deferred resignation program and early retirements. Yet even there, it's hard to know how many people have taken the offer.
In a May 30 press conference with his departing adviser Elon Musk, Trump said 75,000 bureaucrats had voluntarily left their jobs — the number the administration cited in February, before many agencies offered a second round of buyouts, mostly in April.
Office of Personnel Management spokesperson McLaurine Pinover told NPR they don't have an updated number at this time. But based on scattered reports from agencies and employees themselves, it's likely to be far larger now.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told lawmakers last month that roughly 15,000 USDA employees took the offer to resign with pay through September. Three-quarters of them opted into the deal in April, according to USDA numbers shared with Congress.
Many employees told NPR they didn't want to quit their jobs but did so because they feared they'd be laid off, forced to relocate or lose their civil service protections, making them easier to fire for any reason.
No paperwork proving they've been fired
Lauren Dueck, who worked in communications for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, thought her situation would have been resolved long ago. But she's among hundreds of employees stuck in a bizarre state of limbo.
She'd been hired last November by NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce. In late February, she was fired, along with more than 700 other probationary employees at the department.
Several weeks later, a federal judge ruled that their firings were probably illegal and ordered them reinstated. The Commerce Department brought people back, putting them on paid administrative leave. Then another several weeks later, an appeals court overturned the lower court order, and the very next day, April 10, the Commerce Department fired everyone again.
Almost two months later, Dueck has still not received formal paperwork showing she's been terminated. No one she's spoken with among the fired Commerce employees has seen those forms. And no one has been told why.
Dueck says it's led to problems for some people trying to get new health insurance, collect unemployment, or even start a new job.
"We've been calling regularly," Dueck says. "Lots of different people called many times to try to get them to answer these questions."
The Commerce Department did not respond to NPR's questions about what's going on either.
"If they're going to fire us, at least just fire us," Dueck says. "Let us go on and move on to other things."
A "loyalty test" for hiring?
Perryman argues the sweeping changes the Trump administration is making to the civil service aren't about improving efficiency or service to the American people. They're about undermining the merit-based system of federal employment, she says.
Last week, the administration published new hiring guidelines it says will fix an overly complex system that "overemphasized discriminatory 'equity' quotas and too often resulted in the hiring of unfit, unskilled bureaucrats."
Now most applicants to federal jobs will be required to spell out how they would help advance Trump's executive orders and policy priorities.
"Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired," the guidance states.
"That should concern anyone that is worried about corruption, that is worried about improper loyalty tests being given for federal workers," Perryman says.
Dueck says the new hiring process appears to discriminate against people invested in a nonpartisan civil service.
"As much as I would love to be back in federal service someday, it's clear to me that they don't want me right now," she says.
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