The Federal Workforce One Year into the Trump Administration

One of the defining features of the Trump administration’s approach to governance in its second term has been to cut the size of the federal workforce. Through firings, forced relocations and a deferred resignation program, the administration has drastically reduced the number of federal employees. By January 2026, the number of federal employees had decreased by 12% since September 2024, before the start of the administration. This is the largest reduction in the federal workforce since the 1990s.

This Fed Figures analysis dives further into the rapid reshaping of the federal workforce, outlining its current state and providing additional information on how the trends and changes over the past year played out in specific agencies, occupations and locations. 

The State of the Federal Workforce

As of January 2026, there were 2,035,344 federal employees, excluding the Postal Service, foreign service officers and much of the intelligence community. This is a decrease of 12%, or over 250,000 employees, from the September 2024 federal workforce of 2,313,216. The federal workforce in January 2026 was the smallest it has been in at least 15 years and the year-over-year decrease is the largest since the 1990s. 

Location

While federal workforce is closely associated with the Washington, D.C. area, federal employees work in every U.S. state and around the world. In fact, 86.8% of federal employees work outside of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. 

Beyond the nation’s capital, California is the state with the largest proportion of the federal workforce, with 165,762 federal employees, or 8.1%, located in the state. Other states with a large federal presence include Texas (155,953 employees, or 7.7%), Florida (106,709 employees, or 5.2%) and Georgia (79,609 employees, or 3.9%). However, the federal workforce in all of these states is smaller than before the Trump administration, with California experiencing a 10.3% decline between September 2024 and January 2026. Over the same period, Florida’s federal workforce decreased 8.8% and Georgia’s decreased 11.7%.

Demographics

While OPM previously provided data on the sex, race and disability status of federal employees, the agency is no longer making this information available. Demographic data on the age and veteran status of federal employees continues to be available on the Federal Workforce Data site.

The federal workforce continues to skew older than the American workforce at large. In January 2026, only 7.9% of federal employees were under the age of 30. In contrast, employees in this age group made up 19.4% of the overall U.S. labor force in 2025. Around 40% of federal employees were age 50 and over in January 2026 compared with 32.8% of the U.S. labor force.

The changes to the federal workforce during the past year also have reduced the percentage of the federal workforce both under 30 and over 50. In September 2024, 8.9% of the federal workforce was under the age of 30, and 35.7% was age 50 and over. The option to retire through the deferred resignation program and the firings of probationary period employees, who were often early in their careers, likely spurred these changes.

Veterans make up a significant proportion of the workforce, representing 27.9% of federal employees as of January 2026. The Department of Veterans Affairs and components of the Department of War are fittingly among the agencies with the highest percentages of veterans in their workforces. Veterans also make up more than 25% of employees at agencies such as the Departments of Energy and Transportation and the General Services Administration.

Largest Agencies

Agencies with defense and national security missions are among the largest federal agencies. When combined, the four elements of the War Department—the Departments of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Defense—account for 1 in 3 civilian federal employees. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the largest individual agency, with 448,422 employees, or 22% of the federal workforce, as of January 2026.

Among the subcomponents that make up individual parent agencies, the Veterans Health Administration—which provides health care for veterans and their families—has remained by far the largest organization, with 401,199 employees in January 2026, or nearly 20% of the federal workforce.

Other large subcomponents include the Internal Revenue Service (74,314 employees), Customs and Border Protection (67,462 employees) and the Transportation Security Administration (62,607 employees).

Largest Occupations

Among the federal occupations with the most employees are jobs in health care, legal, law enforcement and program management fields. Nurses are the largest federal occupation, with 106,140 employees as of January 2026, despite significant decreases in scientific and health roles across government over the past year. Jobs such as information technology and contracting, which help federal agencies operate, are also common occupations for federal employees.

Changes to the Federal Workforce

The rapid reshaping of the federal workforce during the first year of the second Trump administration has impacted all corners of the federal government, but it has played out differently across different parts of government.

Separations

To achieve its stated goal of significantly reducing the number of federal employees, the Trump administration pursued several avenues including conducting reductions-in-force and offering the deferred resignation program.

Between Jan. 20, 2025 and January 2026, there were 386,826 total separations of federal employees. Of these, 136,822 were through the deferred resignation program. In addition, 10,436 employees were separated via reductions-in-force, which is far more than occurs in a typical year, even with some of the proposed RIFs walked back by the administration. Over the past 10 years, RIFs have never exceeded more than 300 per fiscal year.

Separations by Agency

Agencies with the largest workforces generally had the largest numbers of total separations, with agencies such as the Departments of Veterans Affairs, War and the Treasury among those with the highest numbers of departing employees. 

Certain agencies were disproportionally affected by certain separations mechanisms. For example, just two agencies—the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development—accounted for 77.9% of the reductions-in-force that occurred between January 2025 and January 2026.

Among subcomponents, the Veterans Health Administration, Internal Revenue Service and Forest Service saw the most total separations. Even with these separations, VHA and IRS still remain some of the largest subcomponents across government.

Separations by Occupation

The largest federal occupations had the largest number of individuals leaving government, with program administration and management positions among those with the most total separations. Other operational positions, including HR and IT workers, also saw large numbers of separations. There were also a significant number of separations of nurses, the largest federal occupation, with more than 10,000 departing their agencies. 

Contact representatives—who communicate with the public to help individuals understand issues such as their federal benefits or tax obligations—were also among the top occupations to lose employees, with 9,249 total separations between January 2025 and January 2026.

Accessions

Despite the focus on workforce reduction, including a hiring freeze, the federal government still made new hires in the first year of the Trump administration. Between January 2025 and January 2026, there were 122,598 total accessions. This is far less than in a typical year, as there have generally been around 250,000 hires per fiscal year over the last ten years. 

Accessions by Agency

Hiring was primarily concentrated among agencies with missions related to defense and national security, which were exempted from the administration’s hiring freeze. The combined components of the Department of War had the most hires, with 44,050 total employees joining, followed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (28,842) and the Department of Homeland Security (24,784).

Accessions by Occupation

Large numbers of accessions occurred in several law enforcement and investigative occupations between January 2025 and January 2026. More than 6,000 federal nurses also were newly hired over that period, counterbalancing a portion of the separations in the profession. 

Overall Changes by Agency, Subcomponent and Occupation

The restructuring of the federal workforce has been unevenly distributed across agencies, subcomponents and occupations. While most parts of government decreased in size, the level of impact varied widely, and a few agencies and occupations increased their workforces during the first year of the administration.

Changes by Agency

To best understand how the reduction of the federal workforce was unevenly distributed, it’s important not only to look at the total number of separations and hires, but at the percentage of each agency’s workforce that an increase or decrease represents.

For example, the combined elements of the Department of Defense had the largest net decrease from September 2024, before the start of the administration, through January 2026, decreasing by 78,537 total employees. This represents a 10% decrease in the agency’s workforce.

However, decreases at other agencies represented a much larger proportion of their workforces even if fewer total employees left. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration worked to dismantle, experienced a workforce decrease of 94.6% between Sept. 2024 and Jan. 2026.

The Department of Homeland Security was the only large federal agency that increased its workforce during this time period. By January 2026, the agency had 834 more employees than in Sept. 2024, a 0.4% increase. While this is not a large increase, it is notable in among the widespread decreases across other agencies.

Changes by Subcomponent

Among subcomponents, several agencies with missions related to public health and public lands—such as the Forest Service, National Park Service and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—lost more than a quarter of their employees between September 2024 and January 2026.

The workforce at the Internal Revenue Service had decreased by almost 25% by January 2026, leaving the agency with fewer employees as tax season approached.

Other subcomponents that had large numbers of separations, such as the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Aviation Administration, had significant new hires, as agencies worked to replace the employees who departed. This kept the net change to their workforces relatively small—TSA was 2.8% smaller and the FAA 3.3% smaller in January 2026 than September 2024.

Several subcomponents increased the size of their workforces during the first year of the Trump administration. Many of these, including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, are part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Other subcomponents grew due to agency reorganizations that consolidated employees into one office. For example, due to a reorganization at the Department of the Interior, the agency’s Office of the Secretary more than doubled its workforce between September 2024 and January 2026.

Changes by Occupation

Employment in occupations reserved for student trainees—in fields such as financial management, human resources and biological science—decreased significantly between September 2024 and January 2026. This indicates a contraction in entry-level opportunities for designed for students to enter federal service and learn on the job.

Other significant occupations that experienced large decreases between Sept. 2024 and Jan. 2026 include food inspection, which decreased by over half, and park ranger, which decreased by 34.1%. In line with the large decrease at the IRS, the number of internal revenue officers, tax specialists and tax examiners also decreased by nearly one-third.

There were also increases across several occupations between September 2024 and January 2026. The number of employees in investigative analysis positions increased by 38.4% over that time period, and the number of employees working in customs and border protection interdiction increased by 8.6%, in line with the overall workforce increase at CBP.

Several other significant federal occupations with specialized missions also increased by smaller amounts—including air traffic control, wildland fire management, passport and visa examining and patent examining.

Conclusion

The data above provides insight into the significant changes to the federal workforce during the first year of the Trump administration. We will continue to analyze and share data on how the workforce is changing over time.

For more data and stories on the impacts of changes to the federal government, visit our Federal Harms Tracker.