US Education Department to Cut Half its Staff As Trump Eyes Its

Department offices ordered closed down up until Thursday

Agencies cut workers utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement

Thursday is deadline to submit plans for massive layoffs

(Adds new government report on inappropriate payments, paragraphs 12-14)

By Timothy Gardner, Tim Reid, Alexandra Alper and Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Education said on Tuesday it would lay off almost half its personnel, a possible precursor to closing entirely, as government agencies rushed to satisfy President Donald Trump’s deadline to send strategies for a second round of mass layoffs.

The terminations become part of the department’s “final objective,” it stated in a news release, pointing to Trump’s vow to get rid of the department, which supervises $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for clingy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the shootings would result in the department’s dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated “yes,” adding that doing so “was the president’s required.” The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, below 4,133 when Trump took office in January.

Before revealing the layoffs, the firm purchased offices in the Washington location near personnel from Tuesday night through Wednesday, according to an internal notification seen by Reuters. An Education Department representative did not immediately react to concerns about the nature of the security concerns triggering the closures.

Similar closures acted as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian help company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans versus unscrupulous loan providers.

The layoffs are the latest action in Trump’s sweeping effort to scale down the government, led by the world’s richest individual Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has actually cut more than 100,000 tasks across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign help and canceled countless programs and contracts, in spite of lots of claims challenging the legality of those relocations.

DOGE’s blunt-force technique has actually annoyed numerous White House officials and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have challenged upset constituents at city center. Trump told department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the last word on staffing, his first noteworthy public relocation to limit the .

All U.S. government firms have been bought to come up with large-scale layoff strategies by Thursday, setting up the next phase of Trump’s cost-cutting project. Several agencies have actually provided workers payments to retire early to fulfill Trump’s need.

Affected Education Department staff members will be positioned on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department said.

The union representing more than 2,800 department workers stated it would fight the “exorbitant cuts.”

“What is clear from the previous weeks of mass shootings, chaos, and unattended unprofessionalism is that this regime has no regard for the thousands of workers who have actually committed their professions to serve their fellow Americans,” said Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

Trump and Musk have argued that the federal government is inefficient and puffed up. DOGE claims it has conserved $105 billion in cuts, but it has only publicly documented a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has actually been plagued by mistakes.

The federal government reported an estimated $162 billion in improper payments in 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office annual report launched on Tuesday. The huge majority were overpayments, the report said. Total federal outlays topped $6.75 trillion in that , according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The total inappropriate payments figure was down greatly from 2023’s $236 billion, the GAO stated.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other firms have actually used lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who consent to leave their jobs. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Fda.

The buyout offers, combined with another program that alleviates eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction method to help satisfy the Thursday deadline, personnels experts at a number of federal companies told Reuters.

The Trump administration has actually been coming to grips with myriad claims after it fired countless probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and essentially dismantled entire departments like USAID and CFPB.

The General Services Administration, which handles the government’s residential or commercial property portfolio, is also looking for approval to use the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent out by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA could not be grabbed remark beyond U.S. company hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has actually already offered rewards of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resources and public governance professionals stated the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal difficulties. It likewise needs workers who have actually accepted the offer to repay the money if they take another government task within five years.

Only a number of companies have telegraphed how many employees they plan to cut in the 2nd stage of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 employees, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 personnel.

OPM itself has actually offered lump-sum payments to some 650 of its staff members, according to another individual with knowledge of the matter. Employees were given till March 12 to respond.

On Monday, the HR department of the Fda sent an e-mail to all 19,000 staff members revealing a Friday, March 14, due date for a buyout program. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its prior deal by adding 2 months of full pay in addition to the bonus offer, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters. HHS might not be reached for comment beyond typical U.S. company hours. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid and Marisa Taylor, extra reporting by Nathan Layne and Kanishka Singh, writing by Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Muralikumar Anantharaman)