Commerce seeks to cut 20% of staff—without using layoffs

The Commerce Department is seeking to slash its workforce by 20%, though it is proposing it get to that level of cuts without laying off any employees. 

If implemented, the proposal would reduce Commerce’s headcount by nearly 10,000 employees. The department is using its staffing level on the day President Trump took office as its baseline, meaning all those who have left voluntarily or involuntarily since then would count toward the reductions. Commerce formally submitted its proposal to the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management on Thursday, according to an official familiar with the process. 

All agencies were required to submit those plans on Thursday under OMB and OPM guidance—which implemented an executive order from President Trump—including the specific number of staff expected to be impacted by reductions in force. At Commerce, however, officials are confident they can reach an acceptable cut threshold without resorting to the layoffs. 

About 1,600 employees took the administration’s “deferred resignation” offer, meaning they will be off the rolls after September, and another 850 were fired in their probationary periods. Those departures were counted toward Commerce’s cut total, though the plan was submitted before a judge on Thursday at least temporarily ordered the probationers to be reinstated. 

Like most agencies, Commerce will also offer Voluntary Early Retirement Authority to its workforce. That incentive allows certain employees to tap into their full retirement benefits before they would normally be eligible. Roughly 10,000 employees would be eligible for VERA, though the plan does not assume all of them would take advantage of the offer. 

The department proposed eliminating its funded positions that are currently vacant. It may also indefinitely extend the hiring freeze Trump has implemented across government, which is otherwise slated to expire in April. Those steps, taken with other RIF avoidance measures, would get Commerce to a 20% overall reduction. 

OMB and OPM could still push back on the plan. In their guidance, they had specifically tasked agencies with identifying the competitive areas that would be targeted for RIFs and detailing when the RIFs would take effect and how many employees would be impacted. 

The reductions may not be distributed evenly across the department. An official familiar with the plan said Commerce took input from each bureau and pieced it together to reach 20% in total cuts. Associated Press previously reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposed laying off 10% of its workforce, though that did not appear to be included in Commerce’s final submission. 

While career staff pieced together the plan, the department’s political appointees and liaisons from the Department of Government Efficiency had final say on its submission.