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

Department workplaces ordered shut down up until Thursday

Agencies cut employees using lump-sum payments, early retirement

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

(Adds new government report on improper 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 almost half its staff, a possible precursor to closing altogether, as government agencies rushed to fulfill President Donald Trump’s due date to submit strategies for a second round of mass layoffs.

The terminations become part of the department’s “last mission,” it stated in a news release, pointing to Trump’s vow to get rid of the department, which supervises $1.6 trillion in college loans, implements civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for needy districts.

Asked on Fox News whether the firings would result in the department’s dismantling, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated “yes,” adding that doing so “was the president’s required.” The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 employees, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.

Before announcing the layoffs, the company purchased offices in the Washington area near staff from Tuesday evening through Wednesday, according to an internal notice seen by Reuters. An Education Department spokesperson did not instantly react to questions about the nature of the security concerns triggering the closures.

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

The layoffs are the latest step in Trump’s sweeping effort to downsize the federal government, led by the world’s richest individual Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has cut more than 100,000 tasks throughout the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign help and canceled thousands of programs and contracts, in spite of dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of those relocations.

DOGE’s blunt-force technique has irritated several White House officials and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have faced angry constituents at city center. Trump informed department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the last say on staffing, his first significant public relocation to restrain the Tesla CEO.

All U.S. federal government firms have been bought to come up with massive layoff plans by Thursday, setting up the next stage of Trump’s cost-cutting project. Several companies have used workers payments to retire early to fulfill Trump’s demand.

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

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

“What is clear from the past weeks of mass firings, chaos, and uncontrolled unprofessionalism is that this regime has no regard for the thousands of employees who have actually dedicated their professions 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 government is inefficient and puffed up. DOGE declares it has saved $105 billion in cuts, but it has just openly recorded a fraction of those cost savings, and its accounting has been afflicted by errors.

The federal government reported an approximated $162 billion in inappropriate payments in 2024, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office annual report launched on Tuesday. The large bulk were overpayments, the report said. Total topped $6.75 trillion because financial year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The total inappropriate payments figure was down dramatically from 2023’s $236 billion, the GAO stated.

EARLY RETIREMENT OFFERS

Other companies have actually offered lump-sum payments of as much as $25,000 before tax to workers who consent to leave their jobs. 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 uses, combined with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being accepted as a lower-friction method to help meet the Thursday due date, personnels experts at numerous federal firms told Reuters.

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

The General Services Administration, which handles the federal government’s property portfolio, is also looking for approval to provide the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent out by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The GSA might not be grabbed comment outside of U.S. company hours. The Securities and Exchange Commission has currently used rewards of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnels and public governance experts said the appeal of the buyout program is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal challenges. It likewise needs employees who have actually accepted the offer to repay the cash if they take another government task within five years.

Only a number of firms have telegraphed the number of staff members they plan to cut in the second phase of layoffs. These consist of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is intending to cut more than 80,000 employees, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 personnel.

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

On Monday, the HR department of the Fda sent out an e-mail to all 19,000 workers announcing a Friday, March 14, due date for a buyout program. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its previous offer by including two months of full pay in addition to the benefit, according to a copy of the e-mail seen by Reuters. HHS could not be reached for remark outside of typical U.S. company hours. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid and Marisa Taylor, additional reporting by Nathan Layne and Kanishka Singh, writing by Nathan Layne and Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Muralikumar Anantharaman)