Over 150,000 federal employees are set to leave the US government payroll this week after accepting buyouts, marking the single-largest resignation in history.
Official resignations are expected to begin on Tuesday for employees who opted into a deferred exit programme that kept them on the government payroll through September.
The buyouts are a key part of President Donald Trump's push to shrink the federal workforce, offering financial incentives and threatening dismissal to those who refused the offer.
According to the federal government's human resources (HR) office, many workers left their agencies months ago and have been on paid leave since then.
These buyouts form part of a broader effort by Trump and his former adviser Elon Musk to reduce the federal workforce, arguing that it had become too large and inefficient.
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The federal HR chief said last month that a combination of buyouts, firing, and other incentives for employees to quit indicates the Trump administration will likely lose around 300,000 workers by the end of this year.
This would represent a 12.5 per cent decrease in the federal workforce since January 2025, when Trump returned to the Oval Office.
Impact of Buyouts
Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, said the resignation's biggest impact will be the brain drain of several experienced federal employees. He warned that such a loss of talent will be difficult to reverse.
"It takes years to develop deep knowledge and expertise to deliver government programmes these people run. Now much of the knowledge is walking out the door," Moynihan said.
Interviews with a dozen current and former government workers indicate that agencies are already struggling to carry out their work and serve the American public in the wake of the loss of expertise.
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