Federal layoffs ‘likely’ if too few employees choose to quit, memo says

The Washington Post ^ | January 4, 2025 12:13 PM EST | Faiz Siddiqui, Emily Davies

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The assistant commissioner of a division of the General Services Administration told staff early this week that layoffs across the federal government are “likely” after the deferred resignation offer expires Thursday, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post — the sharpest move yet toward forcibly removing many of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees.

“Please know that I empathize with the tough decisions you each are having to make,” wrote Erv Koehler, assistant commissioner of general supplies and services at GSA, in the email. “Please focus on making the best decision for you and your particular situation.”

Koehler wrote that GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service “is being asked” to cut its program by 50 percent, reflective of agency management’s goal to halve the size of its staff, according to two people familiar with internal conversations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.

Reached by phone, Koehler declined to comment.

The email was the latest sign that administration officials fear few career civil servants will take their offer to quit and continue being paid through September, an initiative key to President Donald Trump’s vision for a smaller and more loyal federal workforce.

Cheered on by Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, who is now running the Department of Government Efficiency out of a White House office — the offer went out last week with a deadline of this Thursday. Musk’s allies are also now running GSA, which manages real estate and some procurement and information technology across the federal government.

Musk shared a post last week on X, his social media network, that claimed that between 5 and 10 percent of workers eligible for the deferred resignation offer would take it. But since the offer went out, Democratic lawmakers and unions representing career civil...

[plain talk]

Federal employees: join the party pal - like the rest of us schmucks out here who have dealt with the threat of layoffs for decades.

[dfwgator]

[Responsibility2nd]

We are being very generous by offering buyouts to the Swamp Rats.

Many saw the chopping block early and bailed out.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-many-washington-dc-officia-.Ukomp8KTrWAOM1ux1R4JA

Many more (thousands more) need to quit now. Or be fired.

[McGavin999]

The democrats were telling them not to take the offer. Just goes to prove democrats don’t have people’s best interest at heart.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Prefer they be terminated.

[Lazamataz]

Prefer they be terminated.

[alloysteel]

Not only terminated, but terminated without pensions or other benefits, and forfeiture of all funds in their Thrift Savings Accounts, a separate annuity set up for retirement.

And also stripped of any and all security clearances.

[SaveFerris]

Excellent!!

[alancarp]

It’s Trump’s version of (Mr.) Beast games: you can take the bribe to eliminate yourself or reject it and risk elimination for free.

[Lazamataz]

And paraded in the streets naked, while a woman walks behind them, intoning "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

[KC_Conspirator]

GSA has ballooned in the past 5-7 years IIRC.

[MNJohnnie]

Federal Employees

In the right hand is cake, in the left hand is a dagger

Choose wisely

[ridesthemiles]

AFTERMATH===

APPLYING FOR A NEW JOB-—WHERE DID YOU WORK BEFORE???

EXACTLY WHAT DID YOU DO???

FOR HOW MUCH PAY ??????????????

[sauropod]

.