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

Department offices ordered shut down up until Thursday

Agencies cut workers utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement

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

(Adds new government report on incorrect 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 entirely, as government firms scrambled to meet President Donald Trump’s due date to submit prepare for a 2nd round of mass layoffs.

The terminations become part of the department’s “final mission,” it said in a news release, mentioning Trump’s vow to get rid of the department, which manages $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil liberties laws in schools and offers federal funding for clingy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the shootings would lead to the department’s dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated “yes,” adding that doing so “was the president’s mandate.” The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, below 4,133 when Trump took workplace in January.

Before revealing the layoffs, the firm ordered workplaces in the Washington area closed to personnel from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notification seen by Reuters. An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the nature of the security concerns prompting the closures.

Similar closures functioned as a precursor to shuttering the head office of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the humanitarian help firm, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which safeguards Americans versus unethical loan providers.

The layoffs are the most recent action in Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the government, led by the world’s wealthiest person Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has actually cut more than 100,000 jobs throughout the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign help and canceled thousands of and contracts, in spite of lots of lawsuits challenging the legality of those relocations.

DOGE’s blunt-force approach has actually frustrated a number of White House authorities and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have actually confronted upset constituents at city center. Trump told department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the last word on staffing, his very first noteworthy public relocation to restrain the Tesla CEO.

All U.S. federal government firms have actually been bought to come up with massive layoff strategies by Thursday, establishing the next stage of Trump’s cost-cutting campaign. Several companies have offered employees payments to retire early to fulfill Trump’s need.

Affected Education Department employees will be placed on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department said.

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

“What is clear from the past weeks of mass shootings, mayhem, and unchecked unprofessionalism is that this program has no regard for the countless workers who have actually committed their careers to serve their fellow Americans,” stated Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

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

The federal government reported an estimated $162 billion in incorrect payments in 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office yearly report released on Tuesday. The huge bulk were overpayments, the report said. Total federal outlays topped $6.75 trillion because fiscal year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

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

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other companies have provided lump-sum payments of approximately $25,000 before tax to employees who consent to leave their tasks. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration.

The buyout offers, combined with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a lower-friction way to help fulfill the Thursday due date, personnels experts at a number of federal firms told Reuters.

The Trump administration has been coming to grips with myriad claims after it fired countless probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and basically took apart entire departments like USAID and CFPB.

The General Services Administration, which manages the government’s residential or commercial property portfolio, is likewise looking for approval to use the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA might not be reached for remark beyond U.S. organization hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already offered perks of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resources and public governance specialists said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less susceptible to legal obstacles. It likewise requires workers who have actually accepted the offer to pay back the cash if they take another federal government task within five years.

Only a number of firms have telegraphed the number of employees they prepare to cut in the 2nd phase of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 staff.

OPM itself has actually used lump-sum payments to some 650 of its workers, according to another individual with knowledge of the matter. Employees were provided until March 12 to react.

On Monday, the HR department of the Fda sent an email to all 19,000 staff members revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline for a buyout program. Those who accept would need to retire by April 19.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its prior offer by including ۲ months of full pay in addition to the perk, according to a copy of the e-mail seen by Reuters. HHS could not be grabbed comment outside of regular U.S. company 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)