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Federal layoffs ‘likely’ if too few employees choose to quit, memo says

This is the sharpest move yet toward forcibly removing many of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees.

Elon Musk arrives for a Senate forum on Capitol Hill in 2023.
Elon Musk arrives for a Senate forum on Capitol Hill in 2023.Read moreJabin Botsford / The Washington Post

The assistant commissioner of a division of the General Services Administration told staff early this week that layoffs across the federal government are “likely” after the deferred resignation offer expires Thursday, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post — the sharpest move yet toward forcibly removing many of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees.

“Please know that I empathize with the tough decisions you each are having to make,” wrote Erv Koehler, assistant commissioner of general supplies and services at GSA, in the email. “Please focus on making the best decision for you and your particular situation.”

Koehler wrote that GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service “is being asked” to cut its program by 50 percent, reflective of agency management’s goal to halve the size of its staff, according to two people familiar with internal conversations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.

Reached by phone, Koehler declined to comment.

The email was the latest sign that administration officials fear few career civil servants will take their offer to quit and continue being paid through September, an initiative key to President Donald Trump’s vision for a smaller and more loyal federal workforce.

Cheered on by Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, who is now running the Department of Government Efficiency out of a White House office — the offer went out last week with a deadline of this Thursday. Musk’s allies are also now running GSA, which manages real estate and some procurement and information technology across the federal government.

Musk shared a post last week on X, his social media network, that claimed that between 5 and 10 percent of workers eligible for the deferred resignation offer would take it. But since the offer went out, Democratic lawmakers and unions representing career civil servants have urged them to reject the deal, which they called a scam.

On Tuesday, an Office of Personnel Management official said reporting by Axios that about 20,000 people had accepted the offer was “not current.”

“The number of deferred resignations is rapidly growing,” the official wrote in a text message. The official declined to give an updated number.