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

Department offices purchased shut down until Thursday

Agencies cut employees using lump-sum payments, early retirement

Thursday is deadline to send prepare for massive layoffs

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

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

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Education stated on Tuesday it would lay off almost half its staff, a possible precursor to closing entirely, as federal government companies scrambled to meet President Donald Trump’s due date to send prepare for a second round of mass layoffs.

The terminations belong to the department’s “last objective,” it said in a news release, mentioning Trump’s vow to get rid of the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and supplies federal funding for clingy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the firings would lead to the department’s dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated “yes,” adding that doing so “was the president’s mandate.” The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 employees, down from 4,133 when Trump took workplace in January.

Before revealing the layoffs, the company purchased workplaces in the Washington area near staff from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notice seen by Reuters. An Education Department spokesperson did not right away react to concerns about the nature of the security issues prompting the closures.

Similar closures acted as a precursor to shuttering the head office of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian aid company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans versus unscrupulous lending institutions.

The layoffs are the newest step in Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the federal government, led by the world’s wealthiest individual Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has cut more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign aid and canceled countless programs and agreements, in spite of lots of lawsuits challenging the legality of those relocations.

DOGE’s blunt-force approach has actually frustrated several White House authorities and Republican lawmakers, a few of whom have confronted upset constituents at city center. Trump informed department heads recently that they, not Musk, have the last say on staffing, his very first significant public transfer to restrain the Tesla CEO.

All U.S. government companies have actually been bought to come up with massive layoff plans by Thursday, establishing the next phase of Trump’s cost-cutting project. Several firms have actually offered employees payments to retire early to satisfy Trump’s demand.

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

The union representing more than 2,800 department workers said it would combat the “heavy-handed cuts.”

“What is clear from the previous weeks of mass shootings, mayhem, and uncontrolled unprofessionalism is that this routine has no respect for the thousands of workers who have 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 declares it has actually conserved $105 billion in cuts, however it has just publicly recorded a fraction of those cost savings, and its accounting has been pestered by errors.

The federal government reported an approximated $162 billion in inappropriate payments in 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office annual report released on Tuesday. The huge bulk were overpayments, the report said. Total federal investments topped $6.75 trillion in that , according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The overall improper payments figure was down sharply from 2023’s $236 billion, the GAO said.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other companies have provided lump-sum payments of approximately $25,000 before tax to workers who consent to leave their tasks. 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, integrated with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being accepted as a lower-friction method to assist meet the Thursday deadline, personnels specialists at several federal agencies informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been coming to grips with myriad lawsuits after it fired thousands of 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 federal government’s home portfolio, is also looking for approval to use the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA could not be reached for remark beyond U.S. organization hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has currently provided bonus offers of approximately $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resources and public governance specialists stated the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less susceptible to legal difficulties. It likewise requires workers who have accepted the deal to pay back the money if they take another federal government job within five years.

Only a couple of agencies have telegraphed how lots of workers they prepare to cut in the 2nd phase of layoffs. These consist of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is preparing to cut 1,029 .

OPM itself has used lump-sum payments to some 650 of its workers, according to another individual with knowledge of the matter. Employees were offered up until March 12 to respond.

On Monday, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent out an email to all 19,000 workers revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline for a buyout program. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

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