The Pentagon plans to cut between 5 to 8 percent of civilian employees through attrition and a voluntary buyout, a defense official told reporters Tuesday.
The Defense Department is under a hiring freeze, which does not affect shipyard civilian mariners and depot workers, USNI News previously reported. By not hiring new employees, the department expects it can cut the civilian workforce by approximately 6,000 per month, a senior defense official said Tuesday.
“So without having to remove any existing employees through the hiring freeze that just naturally creates something like 6,000 civilian workforce slots a month of natural attrition,” the defense official said.
Jobs open up when people retire or employees move to different opportunities, the official said.
“It’s a passive measure, no active employee removals,” the official said. “It’s simply slowing down the rate at which the department would typically bring on board new employees.”
The DoD also offered a deferred resignation program, similar to a buyout. Nearly 21,000 employees volunteered for it, the official said. The department is in the process of putting them on administrative leave with the majority of those who requested the buyout receiving it.
The department also planned to fire 5,400 probationary employees, but the terminations are held up in litigation, similar to other planned probationary cuts in federal departments.
The hiring freeze has exemptions, according to a March 14 memo signed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Mission-essential positions will be filled, according to the memo, with DOD component heads being told to request exemptions for “readiness-centric facilities” like depots and shipyards.
“I have already identified exemptions for positions essential to immigration enforcement, national security, and public safety in my Feb. 28, 2025 memorandum,” reads the memo.
Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jim Kilby told the Senate Armed Service Committee’s readiness and management support subcommittee that civilian mariners and employees that work at the Navy’s public shipyards and maintenance entities are exempt from both the hiring freeze and the probationary employee cuts, USNI News previously reported.
The goal with the hiring freeze and deferred resignation program is to cut up to 8 percent of the civilian workforce, which comes to about 60,000 employees, the official said.
“Five to eight percent reduction is not a drastic one,” the official said. “It’s one the secretary is confident can be done without negatively impacting readiness in order to make sure there are resources that are allocated in the right direction.”
