Federal employment dropped to 2,686,000 in January 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number has not appeared in federal labor data since Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House.
The Bureau’s “All Employees, Federal” series confirms it. We have not seen staffing levels this low since May 1966.
For a long time, the working assumption in Washington was that the federal government only grows. Agencies expand. Programs multiply. Headcount inches upward year after year. Rarely does it move the other way.
This time, it did.
The change took shape during President Donald Trump’s second term, when he signed an executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Publicly associated with Elon Musk, the effort focused on trimming bureaucracy, cutting back administrative layers, and consolidating duplicative functions across federal agencies.
According to Office of Personnel Management data summarized in public reporting, more than 322,000 federal employees left the government workforce during the first year after Trump returned to office.
“During which 322,049 federal government employees have exited the workforce. It is the largest reduction of the federal workforce in the past two decades, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.”
Those exits came in different forms. Roughly 149,500 resigned. More than 105,000 retired. Around 10,500 were laid off. Even after new hires were added, overall staffing declined noticeably.