Federal Workforce Reductions: Late February 2025 Edition
We’re now a month into the Trump Administration, and one prevailing theme we’ve seen take hold is that of workforce reduction, in effort according to officials, to maximize long-term efficiency and align to the new Administration’s priorities. For more on the initially announced fed-wide reductions, see my previous blog. The DoD has recently noted it is aiming to reduce its civilian workforce by 5 to 8 percent, including 5,400 probationary defense employee lay-offs.
The DoD had previously stated its potential to let go of approximately 55,000 probationary employees, but further announcements to this number have not been repeated. There is also a hiring freeze planned for the DoD as we enter into early Spring, 2025.
Several more civilian agencies are also seeing continued cuts. They include the IRS, HHS, Forest Service, Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, VA, SBA, OPM, USAID, GSA and DHS. And to date, approximately 75,000 employees accepted the deferred resignation option previously offered in early February.
Workforce reductions of this magnitude are likely to have a host of effects, many we may not know for some time. In the immediate future, however, we can anticipate the potential for an increase in private sector government contracting hires, as well as an increase in federal needs for protecting data no longer in use by former employees, access management controls, system and infrastructure adjustments, enhanced cybersecurity protocols, data retention, and changes in storage demands as network access is modified.
And when we couple these changes to the return to office (RTO) mandates rolling out, the increased need for IT system changes, in addition to a possible increase in demand for government-secured endpoint devices, collaboration tools and training, are also likely to increase.
Federal directives are consistently being updated to reflect new priorities. Stay tuned for additional details and continuing developments regarding the status of federal workforce adjustments.
To get more TD SYNNEX Public Sector Market Insight content, please visit our Market Intelligence microsite.
About the Author:
Susanna Patten is a senior manager on the TD SYNNEX Public Sector Market Insights team covering tech trends across the Public Sector. Susanna has over 15 years of experience in public sector IT procurement. Her responsibilities at TD SYNNEX Public Sector include driving market intelligence asset production, ensuring the quality and relevance of deliverables from the Market Insights team, and aligning these insights with sales opportunities.
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