The Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Education reportedly offered workers $25,000 or more to resign or retire in recent days, as the Trump administration is expected to make the most sweeping staff reductions thus far in the coming weeks.
Elon Musk speaks with President Donald Trump and reporters in the Oval Office at the White House on ... [+]
The SEC offered some employees $50,000 to retire or leave their jobs in an email Friday with a March 21 deadline to apply, Bloomberg reported, citing a copy of the email it reviewed.
The SEC declined to comment when asked about the report by Forbes.
The Education Department, also in a Friday email, offered some of its workforce $25,000 to resign or retire, according to multiple reports that said employees were given a deadline of Monday at 11:59 p.m. to accept the offer, which would take effect March 31.
The email, from Education chief human capital officer Jacqueline Clay said the offer is being made as the agency prepares for “a very significant Reduction in Force.”
The offers come after the Trump administration ordered agency leaders in a Feb. 26 memo to submit plans for reducing their workforces by March 13.
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the mass firings of probationary employees—a class of workers who have been newly hired and are easier to terminate—across more than two dozen agencies was likely illegal. Judge William Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind its orders to the agency leaders to carry out the terminations in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of unions and worker advocacy groups.
Federal agencies have “buyout authority” via what’s known as the Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority, which allows agencies that are downsizing to offer employees up to $25,000 to voluntarily separate via resignation or retirement, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Eligible employees include those “in surplus positions” or who “have skills who are no longer needed in the workforce.”
The Trump administration has been laying off employees across multiple agencies en masse as it seeks to make sweeping federal budget cuts—efforts spearheaded by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Agency for International Development and Internal Revenue Service are among the most recent agencies to be impacted. Separately, DOGE offered more than 2 million federal employees pay through September if they agreed to resign. The White House said 75,000 employees accepted the offer.
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