by Gregory Korte
The Trump administration’s offer to pay federal employees through the end of September if they agree to leave by the end of February has attracted more than 40,000 sign-ups as of Wednesday — about 2% of the federal civilian workforce.
An Office of Personnel Management official familiar with the deferred retirement data said that number was growing, and the administration expected a rush of applications in the final 24 hours. The deadline to apply — which can be done simply by sending the word “resign” from a government e-mail account — is the end of the day Thursday Washington time.
President Donald Trump and the head of his Department of Government Efficiency, Tesla Inc. and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, have sought ways to rapidly shrink the size of government in the first days of Trump’s second term in office. The White House earlier estimated between 5% and 10% of the federal workforce could take the offer.
An average of 62,000 federal workers have retired each year over the past decade, according to data provided by OPM. Some 298,000 employees will become eligible for retirement within the next two years.
OPM has told workers it could not assure them their jobs would be safe if they don’t take the deal. Most federal agencies “are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force,” OPM said in an email to federal workers Jan. 28.
Exact figures on the number of people eligible for the deal haven’t been released. There are nearly 2.3 million civilian federal employees, but the number eligible for the deferred resignation plan could be less than half of that. OPM exempted civilian defense, immigration and law enforcement employees, postal workers, and certain other sensitive positions.
Federal employee unions have urged members to not take the deal, questioning its legality and enforceability. “Federal employees shouldn’t be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their lackeys,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
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