Pete Hegseth supports cuts of up to 8% of civilian workforce as Trump bids to institute massive government cuts

[riversedge]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/21/pentagon-layoffs-civilian-workers?CMP=share_btn_url



Pentagon lays off 5,400 civilian workers, with tens of thousands more firings due

Pete Hegseth supports cuts of up to 8% of civilian workforce as Trump bids to institute massive government cuts

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/21/pentagon-layoffs-civilian-workers?CMP=share_btn_url





Lois Beckett and agencies
Fri 21 Feb 2025 21.40 EST

The Pentagon announced plans Friday to fire 5-8% of its civilian workforce, starting next week with layoffs of 5,400 probationary workers, a Department of Defense official said in a statement.

The initial civilian layoffs will be followed by a Department of Defense hiring freeze to analyze the military’s personnel needs in compliance with Donald Trump’s political goals, Darin Selnick, the acting under-secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in the statement.

“We anticipate reducing the department’s civilian workforce by 5-8% to produce efficiencies and refocus the department on the president’s priorities and restoring readiness in the force,” Selnick said.

“It is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission-critical. Taxpayers deserve to have us take a thorough look at our workforce top-to-bottom to see where we can eliminate redundancies.”

The announcement of sweeping firings of civilian workers was followed by Donald Trump’s firing of the current chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General CQ Brown Jr.

The initial Pentagon job cuts planned for next week are a fraction of the 50,000 defense department job losses that some had anticipated, but they might not be the last. The defense department is the largest government agency, with the Government Accountability Office finding in 2023 that it had more than 700,000 full-time civilian workers.

A 5-8% cut in that force would mean layoffs of between 35,000 and 60,000 people.............................................