WASHINGTON (Agencies): The Pentagon announced on Friday that it will begin a significant reduction of its civilian workforce, with 5,400 employees set to lose their jobs next week. This marks the first phase of a broader plan to cut the Defense Department’s civilian workforce by 5 to 8%, potentially affecting more than 61,000 employees.
The cost-saving initiative was revealed in a statement by Darin Selnick, who is temporarily serving as the Department of Defense’s personnel chief. According to the Office of Personnel Management, the department employed 764,000 civilians as of June 2024.
Selnick stated that the initial 5,400 employees to be laid off will be “probationary employees”—those who have been promoted, shifted to a new job, or hired within the past year and thus have fewer civil-service protections.
The announcement follows a week in which Pentagon organizations compiled lists of their probationary employees and requested exemptions from the sweeping staff reductions. The move also comes after the Department of Government Efficiency, a White House advisory board, slashed thousands of jobs across federal agencies in recent weeks.
“We believe in the goals of the program, and our leaders are carrying out that review carefully and smartly,” Selnick said in the statement.
Following next week’s firings, the Pentagon will implement a hiring freeze and conduct a “top-to-bottom” review of its civilian personnel needs, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an eight-minute video posted Thursday evening.
The acting deputy defense secretary has also called for an 8% reduction in the workforce, urging military departments to shift funding from “so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs” that do not align with President Donald Trump’s priorities.
“As the Secretary made clear, it is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission-critical,” Selnick wrote. “Taxpayers deserve to have us take a thorough look at our workforce top-to-bottom to see where we can eliminate redundancies.”
In his video, Hegseth emphasized that the initial firings will target “underperformers,” although Selnick’s statement did not mention performance as a consideration for the layoffs.
The White House has not released a detailed tally of how many federal workers have lost their jobs in recent weeks, but reports indicate that more than 19,000 probationary employees at various federal departments and agencies have been affected.