Trump administration offers buyouts to federal workers
(CNN) — Federal workers who don’t want to return to the office are being offered buyouts, according to a memo posted to the US Office of Personnel Management’s website Tuesday night.
CNN previously reported the buyout offers were expected, according to a Trump administration official and an OPM spokesperson.
The administration has ordered federal workers, many of whom had flexible work arrangements following the pandemic, back to the office to work in person. Workers who accept the buyout will need to resign by February 6 and would receive severance paid through September 30.
The heads of the federal agencies were told within the last day that this would be coming, the official said.
The memo outlining the new policy states that the agency emailed federal employees “on January 28, 2025 presenting a deferred resignation offer.”
The email, with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” was sent from hr1@opm.gov using the Trump administration’s new mass email system.
The email says, “The President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit. As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant.”
It adds that if employees “choose to remain in your current position” they cannot be given “full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.”
The program begins effective January 28 and is available until February 6.
“If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason),” the email outlines.
“Folks are variously stunned, pissed, baffled and a bit scared,” one federal employee who received the email told CNN.
All employees across the federal government are being offered to go on what the OPM spokesperson described as paid administrative leave. The Trump administration argues the move could be an off-ramp for federal employees who do not want to return to the office full time, but any government employee can take the buyout, the OPM spokesperson said.
However, there are some exceptions to the buyouts: Postal workers, members of the military, immigration officials, certain national security roles that the administration wouldn’t specify and any other role that agencies deem as being necessary will not be able to opt in, the sources said.
Axios was first to report on the buyouts.
The move comes as the Trump administration tightens its grip on the federal bureaucracy, which the president has long characterized as the “deep state” and vowed to dismantle.
Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump ordered federal agencies to require employees to return to the office full time and signed an order aimed at weakening federal employee protections. He’s also ordered agencies to work to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion offices and positions within 60 days and ended the use of DEI in hiring and federal contracting.
The orders have alarmed federal workers and the unions that represent them, leaving employees worried about their jobs and their ability to carry out the missions that lured them into public service, CNN previously reported.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, argued Tuesday that the buyouts were part of larger plan to get rid of civil servants.
“This offer should not be viewed as voluntary. Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
