Approximately 317,000 federal employees left the government this year, while 68,000 joined, according to a recent blog post from Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor. 

The volume of separations is beyond Kupor’s previously shared targets for workforce reduction. In August, Kupor told WTOP News that he expected the government to shed 300,000 employees by the end of 2025 — down to a total of 2.1 million employees.

Kupor’s post didn’t include specific targets for reduction or hiring in 2026.

Along with sharing the workforce levels, Kupor’s blog post provided further implementation details of President Donald Trump’s executive order from Oct. 15, which outlined new federal hiring expectations. 

The goals he outlined reflect the current Trump administration’s emphasis on “maximum efficiency” and adherence to administration priorities within the federal workforce.

“We want to make sure the government has the right talent focused on the key priorities of the administration and that we are eliminating wasteful taxpayer expenses in areas that are inefficient, no longer required, or in direct contradiction of administration priorities,” Kupor wrote. 

Trump’s executive order last month instructed agencies to create an annual staffing plan for fiscal year 2026 and submit it to OPM and the Office of Management and Budget by Dec. 14. 

“In addition to all the things we care about in terms of where are [agencies] investing their resources, there are administration priorities that we’ve asked them to focus on and make sure that they talk to us about, one of which certainly is the merit hiring plan and how they’ll incorporate that in their hiring,” Kupor said Friday in an interview with Federal News Network. 

The headcount plans align with the Trump administration’s target that for each person hired into the federal government, four people leave, Kupor wrote. He said the government exceeded that ratio this year with the amounts of new hires and departures. 

An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on whether the Trump administration would seek to further reduce headcount in 2026 after already surpassing its goal of 300,000 departures.

Kupor emphasized that OPM will not prescribe headcounts to agencies under the new hiring guidelines. He said the headcount plans will instead give OPM a “pan-government view” of hiring needs, allowing OPM to centralize recruitment efforts and shared certification plans. 

In a memo to agencies on Nov. 5, Kupor and OMB Director Russell Vought said the staffing plans should also cover agencies’ current workforce and staffing needs, gaps in skills areas and strategies for recruitment. The plans should also factor in opportunities for reorganization or reductions. 

Kupor also acknowledged the lack of early career employees hired into the federal government.

“We do have a challenging demographic problem in government where we’re not replenishing the pipeline of new hires of people starting their career at the same rate as we have people who will be retiring over the next five to 10 years,” Kupor told Federal News Network.

The federal government has faced an imbalance of early career employees for several years, and prioritized early career recruitment and development programs to address it. But earlier this year, the Trump administration cut several of those programs, like the Presidential Management Fellows program and U.S. Digital Corps, and fired tens of thousands of probationary employees, many of whom were young staff members.

After submitting initial hiring plans, agencies must submit updates to OPM and OMB on the progress of their plans each quarter, beginning with the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Agencies can also coordinate with OPM and OMB to update their staffing plans.

Kupor called on agencies in his post to change “default” patterns in hiring plans by basing them off of historical levels or budget allowances. 

In creating the annual headcount plans without these “default” behaviors, Kupor wrote that agency leaders should ask themselves, “[W]hat are the functions my agency performs that are in line with presidential priorities or statutory obligations, how many people do I need to provide that service level, and how does that staffing level compare to our current headcount?”

Kupor and Vought directed agency heads to promptly notify OPM of approved new hires. 

Other key elements within the new hiring expectations include the establishment of strategic hiring committees, adaptation of the merit hiring plan and reduction of reliance on contractors. Trump’s executive order directed agencies to form the strategic hiring committees — made up of senior agency leadership — by Nov. 17. 

The committees must approve the creation and filling of vacancies within agencies, and overall ensure that agency hiring aligns with the merit hiring plan, agencies’ annual headcount plans, and “national interest, agency needs, and administration priorities.” 

Kupor wrote that the hiring committees must ask the “right” questions of candidates to “[make] sure that highly skilled people are being hired into the agency and [ensure] that they are thinking about a broad set of solutions with efficiency in mind.”

The ultimate focus in agency hiring, he wrote, should be on delivering to the American people at the lowest cost — not simply reducing headcount levels.

The post OPM says cuts to federal workforce surpassed 2025 goals first appeared on Federal News Network.

Three unions representing federal employees are suing the Trump administration for including a new essay question on thousands of federal job applications, asking candidates how they plan to advance the Trump administration’s policies.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, is led by the American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and National Association of Government Employees.

One of several essay questions, outlined under the administration’s Merit Hiring Plan, asks candidates how they would “advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities,” and to name “one or two executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you,” and how they would help implement them if hired.

The unions claim the inclusion of a “loyalty question” on federal job applications runs counter to the nonpartisan nature of the civil service, because it allows the “Trump Administration to weed out those who do not voice sufficient support for President Trump and reward those who do.”

“Potential federal job applicants who want to serve the United States but do not personally support the president’s executive orders and policy initiatives — or simply prefer not to share their political beliefs and views when applying for a career federal job — will be compelled to speak in the form of a written essay praising the president’s orders and policies (in order to better their chances of employment), risk being punished for answering honestly, or be chilled from speaking at all,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit seeks to bar the Trump administration from using the “loyalty question” in federal hiring decisions or “relying on answers to the loyalty question in any manner.”

The unions claim the essay question violates the free speech rights of job candidates, because it “compels applicants to voice certain viewpoints and opinions, to self-censor, or to decline to apply for positions they are otherwise interested in.”

“That is by design. The current administration has a stated goal of removing civil servants it deems to be disloyal and replacing them with loyalists,” the complaint states. “By directing the use of the loyalty question in job applications for most career positions and instructing politically appointed agency leaders to review applicant responses, the administration appears to be trying to fill nearly every level of the civil service with political loyalists.”

The unions also claim the question violates the Privacy Act, because it “collects unnecessary and irrelevant information about the exercise of applicants’ First Amendment rights.”

The Office of Special Counsel, in its response to a complaint filed this summer, determined that the Merit Hiring Plan’s optional hiring questions did not amount to a prohibited personnel practice, and that guidance from the Office of Personnel Management ensured the questions do not constitute a loyalty test.

The lawsuit states that the Education Department has included the essay question on job applications, after shedding about half of its employees through layoffs and voluntary separation incentives this year. The Education Department is also one of several agencies that sent additional layoff notices to employees on Oct. 10.

“In other words, after firing hundreds of Department of Education employees, the agency simply re-posted the same jobs, now with the requirement to answer the loyalty question. In order to even attempt to recover their old jobs, civil servants must subject themselves to the loyalty question, regardless of their political beliefs, or remain out of work,” the complaint states.

The Trump administration released its Merit Hiring Plan in May to ensure that “only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans are hired to the federal service.”

In follow-up guidance, however, the Office of Personnel Management downplayed the importance of the essays as just one piece of a candidate’s overall application. The HR agency said it’s optional for job candidates to answer the essays, and that candidates won’t be disqualified from consideration if they skip them.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement Friday that the Merit Hiring Plan “reinforces the nonpartisan character of the federal workforce,” and that “we have been very clear that hiring decisions cannot consider political or ideological beliefs.”

“The Merit Hiring Plan strengthens the career civil service by ensuring agencies evaluate applicants based on skills, experience, and commitment to public service. As part of the plan, we have recommended agencies use four optional, free-response essay questions that give candidates an opportunity to provide additional information about themselves, their background, and dedication to public service,” Kupor said.

OPM’s guidance states the essay question is non-mandatory, but “encouraged.” OPM’s guidance states that the question should not be used as a “political litmus test,” and that answers will not be scored or ranked. The unions, however, say there’s evidence that candidates’ responses will determine whether they advance to the next stage of the hiring process.

OPM’s guidance says that responses will be reviewed by hiring managers and political appointees. The lawsuit says that suggests “the answers will play some unknown and unspecified role in the hiring process.”

“Of course the loyalty question will play some role in hiring: otherwise, why include it at all?” the complaint states.

An OPM official told federal human resources officials in August that it is “mandatory” for agencies to include the essay question on job applications, but optional for candidates to answer.

The complaint states the essay question has appeared on over 5,800 federal job applications so far — and that 1,700 of those job posts have been posted since the start of the government shutdown, now the longest funding lapse in U.S. history.

The essay question appears on a wide range of job applications — from a meatcutting worker at the Defense Department, to a research biologist at the Agriculture Department, to a laundry worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The complaint states that “an applicant’s ability to perform these and other career civil service roles competently is entirely unrelated to the applicant’s personal political views.”

The post Unions sue Trump administration over ‘loyalty question’ added to federal job applications first appeared on Federal News Network.