Featured May 5, 2025 Most Americans oppose the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce Back to Blog Latest FedScope data offers a glimpse into federal workforce changes under DOGE and raises transparency concerns Date July 10, 2025 Authors Elizabeth Byers, Brandon Lardy Tags Fed Figures, Workforce The Office of Personnel Management’s recent release of raw FedScope data files for March 2025, the first significant update in months, offers early signals about federal workforce trends under the Trump administration, but also raises serious transparency concerns. This release was hotly anticipated by the Partnership and other stakeholders, both for its potential to show how the workforce is changing under the Department of Government Efficiency’s or DOGE’s chaotic restructuring actions, and as a test of how the administration intends to support FedScope, especially after DOGE dismantled the unit responsible for managing this critical HR database. Early signs of workforce changes Between September 2024 and March 2025, the federal civilian workforce shrank by 1.0%, dropping from 2,313,216 to 2,289,472 employees. Among the cabinet departments, the largest workforce retractions came at the Departments of the Interior (-8.1%), Agriculture (-7.8%) and Education (-3.7%), a combined loss of more than 13,000 employees. Gaps in the data—and transparency Despite its value, however, the latest data omits key workforce changes. The scores of employees across government placed on administrative leave and slated for removal, including almost the entire workforce of the former United States Agency for International Development, are still counted as active, meaning many high-profile reductions-in-force are not captured in the data. We will likely have to wait until the release of the December 2025 data for a more accurate picture of the impact of administration’s Deferred Resignation Program, through which a large number of federal employees will be officially let go in October. More concerning is OPM’s decision to reclassify disciplinary and performance-based terminations. Typically the third-largest separation category and one of the primary vehicles DOGE has used to fire probationary employees, these actions are now grouped under “other separations” alongside deaths. This change significantly weakens transparency and will make it harder for stakeholders to track how the administration is using this mechanism to reshape the federal workforce. Technical changes OPM also introduced several technical changes in this release. On the positive side, new summary files with totals by parent agency and subcomponent offer a much more accessible entry point for analysts and public users. However, OPM removed the traditional reference tables—separate files that defined the codes used in the main dataset—and replaced them with text values embedded directly in the data. This approach can be more error-prone and slow down processing for users working with the data at scale. Looking ahead Paired with news of a FedScope modernization effort and upcoming user experience updates, this release suggests OPM plans to continue to improve public access to this vital dataset. Still, for those closely tracking workforce trends, it offers only a partial picture. As the administration’s workforce reshaping efforts continue, it will be critical to watch not just what the data says, but how it is collected, defined and released. Elizabeth Byers supports the Partnership’s research on government effectiveness, including projects around the use of data and technology in government. Brandon Lardy leads the Partnership’s data science practice and internal data strategy.
