Maggie was faced with a tough choice in February 2025: quit her job at the US office of personnel management or be unceremoniously fired.
Though she was a few months pregnant at the time, Maggie was offered one of the buyouts that were offered to tens of thousands of federal government employees by the office of personnel management.
“I couldn’t be without health insurance through the delivering of my baby,” said Maggie, who requested to omit her last name for fear of professional repercussions. “I was going to have six to seven months of paid parental leave, because I’d been on my job for five years and I accrued time.”
She took a buyout offer in May 2025 and, like all federal employees who took buyouts, and was placed on administrative leave until September 2025. She delivered her baby in September, just 10 days after she formally lost her job.
“Then I lost my insurance at the end of October,’” she said. “I had 10 days after having my baby before I lost my job, technically, and then I lost my insurance at the end of October,” Maggie said. “My job was to make the government more efficient and work better for the people it served and the people who do the serving. Cutting us is making the government less efficient.”
Maggie has been applying to jobs since then, though she is still waiting for her agency to give her an ethics letter that would allow her to start work at another job.
“If they were organized and going back through this in a methodical way, they would have all of our paperwork and everything in order, but this was thoughtless and careless,” she said.
Since Trump took office last January, the federal workforce has declined by about 355,000 employees, with 18,000 workers leaving the federal workforce in March 2026. Furloughed workers during the partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security were counted as employed in March job numbers. The Trump administration had attempted even more expansive firings and cuts but was blocked by court decisions and, in some cases, rehired some workers after it realized it had cut too many jobs.
The Guardian spoke to current and former federal government employees who said they were dealing with a difficult job market, flooded with other former government workers. The cuts have also left remaining government workers scrambling to keep important government functions afloat as they absorb the workloads of those who left.
‘We just got thrown away like garbage’
Charles Melton had spent 20 years at the US Department of Agriculture and planned to stay at least another 10 years before he took an early retirement offer in September.
Though he has found another job outside Washington DC, Melton still helps former colleagues with résumé and cover letter writing who are still struggling to find a new job.
“I’m still mad as hell,” said Melton. “We never had a chance to make our cases. We just got thrown away like garbage.”
One worker had moved from Michigan to Washington DC for a new job at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Because the role was considered probationary, the job was soon cut once Trump took office.
“This was that kind of opportunity that [was] hard to get into, but I took the chance, moved and I’ve been wholly unable to find something adequate in DC. The job market has just collapsed,” the worker, who requested anonymity, said. “I’ve applied to over 250 jobs.”
Operationally, federal agencies are struggling to keep up with the demand for public services due to the cuts.
Amid staffing losses, customer service at the Social Security Administration has worsened, with staff being reassigned to assist on the agency’s national phone line. Healthcare workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs have reported ongoing staffing issues due to cuts and hiring freezes that have reduced services. Federal labor enforcement and inspections have dropped significantly.
Other agencies have been effectively rendered inoperable. The shutdown of USAID has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world due to the spread of infectious diseases and malnutrition. At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, multiple consumer fraud cases and protections were dropped amid efforts to shut down the agency.
“There was not any thought put into what they were doing,” Melton said. “I don’t think it’s hit home yet. I don’t think the American public realizes how much has been lost yet.”
A current US Department of Education worker who requested anonymity said the department was a skeleton of what it used to be.
“It’s just been really sad to see how our agency was decimated,” the worker said. “It’s our life’s work. For a lot of people, this is 20 to 30 years of work.”
Another current federal employee said many government workers had stuck around, despite the hostility toward federal workers, because they deeply care about public service.
“They are there because they deeply believe in the mission, and the mission is keeping the public safe, healthy, alive and well-treated. They deeply believe in that and so they’ve decided to go down with the ship, even though that ship is not treating them very well,” said the worker, who also requested anonymity. “They’re sticking with it because they care, because they’re good people, doing good work and in some cases, keeping extremely important government functions alive by the skin of their teeth.”
The White House declined to comment, deferring to office of personnel management (OPM) and office of management and budget, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In a statement, Scott Kupor, OPM’s director, said “reshaping the federal workforce is essential to building a government that works for the American people, not the bureaucracy”.
“By realigning roles, streamlining operations, and modernizing how agencies manage talent, we are strengthening performance and accountability across government,” Kupor added. “This effort ensures taxpayer dollars support a workforce that delivers efficient, responsive, and high-quality services.”
