US federal workforce remains steady despite Trump's efforts

By Courtney Rozen and Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday reported having 2.3 million people on federal payrolls in March, almost unchanged from prior months despite the Republican's efforts to shrink the size of government.

The Office of Personnel Management, which functions as the HR department for the federal government, published figures on Tuesday on hiring and firing across thousands of government offices, with growth in some areas of government largely canceling out cuts elsewhere.

Overall, the number of federal jobs – excluding postal workers and the military – was down about 23,000 from September, the last published report on overall staffing levels.

To be sure, the numbers are only through March and Trump, who took office in January, has continued efforts to shrink the federal workforce. The administration has signed deals, for example, with at least 75,000 federal workers, agreeing to pay them for several months before they resign. A spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management said hundreds of thousands of such workers will drop off federal payrolls in October.

“This data marks the first measurable step toward President Trump’s vision of a disciplined, accountable federal workforce and it’s only the beginning,” Acting OPM Director Chuck Ezell said in a statement.

Trump, with help from former adviser Elon Musk, kicked off a sweeping campaign in January to shutter federal offices and cut jobs. Federal worker unions and their allies pushed back in court, with judges ordering agencies in some cases to rescind or pause the firings.

The new figures show a nosedive in hiring, which dropped by half in February from January. OPM ordered federal agencies to pause hiring on Inauguration Day, with exceptions for positions related to immigration, national security or public safety. The federal government hired fewer than 5,000 people in January, compared to about 20,000 in December before Trump returned to the White House.

The Labor Department’s own estimates on the size of the federal workforce, which are based on surveys of government payrolls rather than the Office of Personnel Management’s more precise tally, have pointed to further tiny declines in federal employment in April and May.

The figures released on Tuesday showed payrolls at the Social Security Administration, which administers pensions and other payments for millions of elderly Americans, had fallen to about 56,000 in March, down from about 58,000 in September. Payrolls at the Department of Homeland Security, which leads the president’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, rose to about 232,000 in March from 228,000 in September.

(Reporting by Courtney Rozen and Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)