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

Department workplaces ordered closed down till Thursday

Agencies cut workers utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement

Thursday is due date to send plans for large-scale layoffs

(Adds brand-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 said on Tuesday it would lay off nearly half its staff, a possible precursor to closing completely, as government companies rushed to fulfill President Donald Trump’s due date to submit 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 manages $1.6 trillion in college loans, implements civil rights laws in schools and supplies federal financing for clingy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the firings would result in the department’s taking apart, 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 company purchased offices in the Washington area near personnel from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notice seen by Reuters. An Education Department representative did not immediately react to questions about the nature of the security concerns triggering the closures.

Similar closures worked 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 protects Americans versus deceitful lending institutions.

The layoffs are the latest step in Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the government, led by the world’s richest person 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 thousands of programs and agreements, regardless of dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of those moves.

DOGE’s blunt-force technique has annoyed several White House officials and Republican legislators, a few of whom have actually constituents at town halls. Trump informed department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the last word on staffing, his very first notable public move to restrain the Tesla CEO.

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

Affected Education Department workers will be put on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department stated.

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

“What is clear from the past weeks of mass shootings, chaos, and uncontrolled unprofessionalism is that this regime has no respect for the thousands of workers who have devoted their professions to serve their fellow Americans,” stated Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

Trump and Musk have argued that the federal government is wasteful and puffed up. DOGE declares it has conserved $105 billion in cuts, but it has actually just openly documented a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has been plagued by errors.

The federal government reported an approximated $162 billion in incorrect payments in fiscal year 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office yearly report released on Tuesday. The vast bulk were overpayments, the report stated. Total federal expenses topped $6.75 trillion in that , according to the Congressional Budget Office.

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

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other companies have offered lump-sum payments of approximately $25,000 before tax to employees 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 provides, combined with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a lower-friction method to help meet the Thursday deadline, personnels professionals at numerous federal firms informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has actually been facing myriad suits after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and basically took apart whole departments like USAID and CFPB.

The General Services Administration, which manages the government’s residential or commercial property portfolio, is also seeking approval to use the buyout payments to employees, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA might not be grabbed comment outside of U.S. business hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has actually already offered bonuses of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnels and public governance experts said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal difficulties. It likewise needs workers who have accepted the deal to pay back the cash if they take another federal government job within 5 years.

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

OPM itself has provided lump-sum payments to some 650 of its staff members, according to another person with understanding of the matter. Employees were provided 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 announcing 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 offer by including two months of full pay in addition to the bonus, according to a copy of the e-mail seen by Reuters. HHS might not be reached for remark outside of regular U.S. organization 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)