US agencies shrink layoff plans after mass staff exodus

By Courtney Rozen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration will reduce planned federal worker layoffs, a personnel official said on Monday, after tens of thousands of employees accepted buyouts or retired early to avoid dismissal.

"Several agencies are now not planning to proceed" with staff cuts, Office of Personnel Management senior adviser Noah Peters said in a statement filed in federal court.

He said the financial incentives that departments offered employees to quit in the first few months of the administration, along with "natural attrition" were the reasons agencies were rethinking layoffs.

Peters did not specify which departments were reducing their planned layoffs.

This is the latest example of the Trump administration walking back announcements to cut federal workers, after more aggressively pursuing staff reductions earlier this year. The Department of Veterans Affairs said in July that it would reduce staff by about 30,000 people rather than 80,000.

Upon taking office in January, President Donald Trump launched a campaign to overhaul the 2.3 million-strong federal civilian workforce, led by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. By late April, about 100 days into the effort, the government overhaul had resulted in the firing, resignations and early retirements of 260,000 civil servants, according to a Reuters tally.

As part of the overhaul, Trump in February ordered agencies to write blueprints for mass layoffs. Federal worker unions and their allies sued, arguing that the president needed permission from Congress to reshape the agencies. San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in May sided with the unions and ordered the Trump administration not to carry out the plans while the case proceeded.

The Supreme Court on July 9 reversed Illston's order. The justices cleared the way for 19 federal agencies to pursue mass government job cuts. The list includes the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, among others.

(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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