Shockwaves from the layoffs at various government agencies are expected to continue into the foreseeable future, and a host of government buildings could soon be sold as well.
The Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency have already sent thousands of workers packing or off to new things via deferred resignations, but President Donald Trump and his team want to go further.
This week brought news that the Education Department would lay off nearly half of its workforce. Trump said that “many of them don’t work at all” and that those who remain are “the best ones.”
More could be on the way. In late February, the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management sent a memorandum telling government agencies to “take preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force” and to submit two “Agency Reorganization Plans.”
The first of those two deadlines arrived on March 6, with the other set for April 14.
“Everybody is working together as one team,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner. “This is a goal that every Cabinet secretary across the board agrees with — we have to reduce our workforce. We have to make our bureaucracy more efficient.”
De facto DOGE leader Elon Musk says his group is in “pretty much” every federal agency and that DOGE is expected to expand its workforce from 100 to 200.
“Really, I just don’t want America to go bankrupt,” he told Fox Business host and former Trump administration official Larry Kudlow.
Thousands of federal workers and contractors might respond, “Really, I just don’t want to lose my job.”
Trump and Musk campaigned on cutting government waste, but few could foresee the sweeping scale and speed of their efforts, which show no signs of slowing down two months into Trump’s second term.
Plans have been announced to cut 144 jobs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, between 30 and 40 at the General Services Administration, and 2,000 at the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the New York Times. USAID’s website contains instructions for employees to pick up their belongings from the agency’s former D.C. offices.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration let nearly 1,400 people go, while the Social Security Administration is aiming to cut 7,000 jobs.
Dwarfing them all is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which aims to cut more than 80,000 people and shrink its workforce from 482,000 to 400,000.
It is not just workers, though. Hundreds or perhaps even thousands of government buildings and other property could soon be sold as well.
The Trump administration has already released and retracted a list of federal buildings across the United States that could be put up for sale.
The GSA, the agency tasked with building management, briefly listed 433 “non-core” properties it was going to sell, though the list was soon replaced with a message reading, “coming soon.”
“We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties, for disposal,” the page now reads.
Most of the federal buildings listed were in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, including large buildings and agency headquarters of the Justice Department, FBI, and Agriculture Department. But as with workers, many are located elsewhere, with Michigan totaling 26 buildings on the list and Chicago having 11.
The relationship between workers and building space will be interesting to watch as the building selloff coincides with a Trump executive order requiring all federal workers to return to the office five days a week. But some of that renewed occupancy pressure is expected to be relieved by the mass layoffs.
Hundreds of offices will be vacated this summer, the Associated Press reported, with leases expected to end by June 30.
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Musk outlined a goal of saving taxpayers $2 trillion, which most experts say is unrealistic even as the cuts already have fueled talk of a pending recession. But Musk and Trump say they are moving ahead with their plans.
“It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people,” Trump posted on March 6 on Truth Social. “We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done.”