Pew: Trump Shrank Federal Workforce by 10%
By Charlie McCarthy | Monday, 16 March 2026 11:02 AM EDT
The federal workforce shrank by a little more than 10% during the first year of President Donald Trump's second term in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center.
An analysis by the Pew Research Center of newly released government data found that the federal workforce fell by 10.3% in 2025 — a net reduction of nearly 238,000 employees — as the Trump administration moved aggressively to trim what it has long described as an oversized and inefficient bureaucracy.
The decline came as more than 348,000 federal employees quit, retired, were laid off, or otherwise left government service last year, an 80.8% increase from 2024.
At the same time, only about 116,900 people were hired — a 55.6% drop from the previous year.
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/pew-analysis-trump-administration-reduce/2026/03/16/id/1249641/