WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A host of U.S. federal agencies have unveiled fresh buyout offers to slash the federal workforce, renewing the voluntary program that preceded the first wave of mass firings led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
The Treasury Department, Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management, the federal human-resources agency, are among agencies unveiling a new version of the "deferred resignation program" in recent days. The offer gives workers the chance to go on leave with pay until September before formally exiting their roles.
About 75,000 federal workers accepted the first buyout offer, but some economists questioned how many would take it this time after President Donald Trump sent world markets into a downward spiral and raised fears of a recession with his announcement of sweeping new tariffs last week.
Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland, said that with the tariff-induced market uncertainties expected to chill private-sector hiring, federal workers would be less likely to take the offers.
"It will be harder to make the transition to the private sector if we're in the depths of a recession," Morici said in an interview.
Similar views were expressed by participants in a Reddit group chat that has become a lifeline for federal workers since the Musk-led purge began. They warned workers that they would be entering a potentially much more unfriendly job market as companies grapple with the fallout from Trump's announcement.
DOGE, the White House, Treasury, Defense and OPM did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At OPM, Acting Director Chuck Ezell told staff in an email on Friday that the new offer "provides employees the option to take paid administrative leave through Sept. 30, 2025."
He described it "as a tool to avoid Reductions in Force," the formal term for mass layoffs.
The Department of Labor and the General Services Administration, which manages the government's real estate portfolio, have also announced similar programs.
The Labor Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while a GSA spokesman noted that the agency's new offer also applied to workers who had already been identified for dismissal.
The program is one of many efforts to dramatically reduce the size and costs of the federal government. The latest buyout offer takes a page from the so-called fork in the road email sent on January 28, offering a similar program to all 2 million civilian full-timefederal workers.
The "fork in the road" email was followed by DOGE-led mass firings of tens of thousands of probationary workers, although a judge has since forced the Trump administration to rehire them, ruling that their terminations were likely illegal. DOGE is now scything through departments in a second wave of large-scale layoffs.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper in Washington, Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut and Simon Jessup in London; Editing by Ross Colvin and Matthew Lewis)
