Pa. and N.J. lost thousands of jobs after federal workers signed up for Trump resignation program

The number of federal government employees in the Philadelphia region plunged in October, according to new employment data that appear to reflect the departure of thousands who opted into President Donald Trump’s resignation program.

Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce over his first year in office became clearer Wednesday with the release of new employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, thousands of federal jobs were cut from September to October.

It was the first time the government’s deferred resignation program has been reflected in local employment data. First offered in January 2025, this program allowed federal employees to resign from their jobs while continuing to receive pay. For many, the program ended Sept. 30. While it may have been months since they had completed duties related to their federal jobs, the end of the deferred resignation period is when they officially stopped being employed by the government for purposes of employment data.

“The federal workforce is …in communities like Philadelphia, and we are part of the economy,” said Philip Glover, a union leader with AFGE District 3, which represents federal workers in Pennsylvania and Delaware. The recent local job loss will have ripple effects, he said. It “affects stores, transit, it affects tax bases, all of those things are affected,” he said.

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Federal agencies in the Philadelphia metro area — a region that includes Camden and Wilmington — shed about 2,900 jobs in October, down 5.3% from September. It was the steepest month-over-month decline since July 2010 and the fourth biggest since at least 1990.

Pennsylvania lost overall about 4,800 federal jobs in October, a 4.8% drop and the largest month-over-month decrease since October 2020.

New Jersey lost about 1,200 federal jobs in October.

In nearly five years, employment overall has grown 12.6% in the Philadelphia metro area, but regional gains in federal employment have now been completely wiped out by job losses in the past year.

The handful of larger prior declines in federal employment for Pennsylvania and Philadelphia came during the recessions of the early 1990s and 2000s, the Great Recession and its aftermath, or the COVID-19 pandemic — periods during which economic activity slowed and the federal government experienced a decline in tax revenue.

The deferred resignation would have been reflected in a November release, but it was delayed because of the federal government shutdown, which stretched through early November.

The federal employment figures include all full- and part-time civilian employees, including those of the Postal Service. But it does not include armed forces and intelligence agencies such as the CIA and NSA.

Paul Kenney spent almost 30 years at the National Park Service in Philadelphia — more than two decades in the Northeast Regional Office on Market Street in river protection and six years at Independence National Historical Park.

All that came to a halt in March 2025. Kenney decided the Trump administration’s efforts to significantly reduce the federal workforce was too much. He felt demoralized and also concerned that a bill in Congress at the time would impact his pension.

The 59-year-old decided to retire three years early, despite wanting to stay in the workforce. He had just scored some highly coveted grants for restoration efforts in the parks. He remains involved with his union, AFGE Local 2058, as a vice president.

By the end of May, five people from Kenney’s 11-person team at the Northeast Regional Office left; almost all had opted to take an early retirement.

» READ MORE: These Philly federal workers loved their jobs. But amid Trump’s shakeup they chose to leave.

“The pressure really was all DOGE,” Kenney said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency Trump launched soon after taking office. It was a “grim” experience for those in the federal workforce, he added.

Kenney is one of the thousands no longer on government payroll. Federal employees were laid off, took early retirements, and resigned in 2025 amid Trump’s workforce overhaul.

Beyond layoffs earlier in 2025, the Trump administration sent termination notices during the government shutdown that started on Oct. 1. Those firings were ordered to be reversed under the deal to end the shutdown.

In Pennsylvania, federal employment represented about 1.52% of all jobs as of November, down from around 1.69% for the same month in 2024, according to the new data.

In New Jersey, federal workers represented about 1.05% of jobs overall as of November, down from around 1.13% in November 2024.

The most recent BLS data are not broken down by agency or department, but data from March 2025 from Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry indicate that in Southeastern Pennsylvania, the largest employers of federal workers are the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Treasury.

Nationally, the federal government shed about 162,000 jobs in October, down 5.6% from September and 8.7% from the previous October. The government lost a further 6,000 jobs in November.

There were about 2.74 million federal employees nationwide as of November, compared with about 3.02 million at the start of 2025. The country experienced a loss of 271,000 federal jobs from January through November.

That’s not far off the 300,000 federal jobs that the Trump administration had said would be cut by the end of 2025. Data for the remainder of the year will be available later this month.

“What it’s doing is putting a strain on the remainder of the workforce to continue operations,” said Glover. “That increases stress levels, it doesn’t increase efficiency.”

Meanwhile, the federal government could shut down again, albeit partially, if legislators don’t reach a funding deal by Jan. 30.

And with that in mind, Glover said, additional federal workers may be thinking about quitting. “I think people are making decisions now whether they’re gonna stay if that happens again.”