Charted: The sharp decline in federal employment

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios VisualsThere are 271,000 fewer federal employees than there were at the start of 2025 — about a 9% drop, per the latest tally from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Why it matters: The sharp decline is a result of President Trump's efforts — initially spearheaded by Elon Musk's DOGE — to drastically reduce the size of the federal government.By the numbers: In January 2025, there were a more than 3 million federal workers.In November, there were 2.74 million, according to the latest employment report.The bulk of the departures happened in October — when 162,000 people, mostly those who took Musk's "fork in the road," were officially off the books, per the Labor Department.The fork became known as "deferred resignation," meaning these folks quit and in exchange continued getting paychecks through Sept. 30.Between the lines: Most who left the federal workforce weren't technically fired, they were pushed out: either taking the fork or choosing other more traditional voluntary retirement programs or other incentivized departures.Only about 25,000 of the more than 300,000 people the Trump administration expected would be gone by the end of 2025 were actually terminated, Scott Kupor, the current head of the federal government's HR agency, the Office of Personnel Management, said recently on the Statecraft podcast. Those who were fired included probationary employees with fewer job protections, and those impacted by so-called RIFs, reductions-in-force, where agencies formally decide to permanently reduce headcount.Zoom out: "My interpretation of why a lot of those people chose to leave the government was, they probably said, 'This is different from what I signed up for,' " Kupor said."I get it. There's a new leadership team."What they're saying: "The Deferred Resignation Program was fully voluntary, full stop," an OPM spokesperson tells Axios. "No one was forced to sign up. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers used the program to depart the government on their own terms, with dignity and generous financial benefits." The other side: Federal employees, scared of getting fired or "RIFd," felt that they had little choice — others resigned in protest over policy decisions.Friction point: The administration has since moved to rehire some employees, realizing they were needed to handle things like the nuclear weapons arsenal, avian flu and taxes.A tally from Brookings identified 26,511 occasions where the Trump administration "abruptly fired people and then hired them back" — some due to court orders.What to watch: Kupor says he wants to make working for the federal government cool again.