In 2025, President Donald Trump’s return to the White House coincided with a sweeping departure from the federal workforce, with about 317,000 employees leaving through firings, resignations and retirements by year’s end, according to the Office of Personnel Management. A crackdown on diversity initiatives, new performance pressures and uncertainty over job security left morale deeply shaken, as personal stories illustrate the human toll.
The federal workforce experienced extraordinary upheaval in 2025 after Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.
By the end of the year, roughly 317,000 federal employees were out of government service, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) cited by NPR. Tens of thousands had been fired, while far more resigned or retired, many out of concern they could lose their jobs if they stayed, or because they felt working conditions had deteriorated.
Those losses unfolded against a backdrop of aggressive efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the civil service. On his first day back in office, Trump reinstated a policy modeled on his earlier "Schedule F" order, aimed at making it easier to dismiss tens of thousands of federal workers in policy‑influencing roles. OPM has estimated that about 50,000 positions — roughly 2% of the federal workforce — could be shifted into a new employment category with fewer job protections, allowing agencies to remove employees more swiftly for alleged poor performance, misconduct or defiance of presidential directives.
The administration also launched a federal hiring freeze in January, limiting agencies’ ability to replace departing staff even as buyout offers and restructuring plans rippled across departments. In addition, critics say Trump’s renewed push to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, along with tighter performance‑evaluation rules, contributed to an atmosphere of fear and mistrust inside many agencies.
One of those who left is Liz Goggin, a licensed clinical social worker who had spent more than a decade at the Veterans Health Administration. Goggin told NPR she quit in June 2025 after twice declining buyout offers. She described a sharp drop in morale as new mandates began arriving with little warning.
Among them, Goggin recalled, was a directive that employees send supervisors weekly lists of five bullet‑point accomplishments. Another instruction told staff to report any anti‑Christian bias they observed among co‑workers — a problem she said she had never seen in her years at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"In my whole time at the VA, I did not see any anti‑Christian bias," she said. "To be clear, that was not even remotely an issue." Goggin said that, combined with a wave of new compliance demands, left her and colleagues feeling scrutinized and demoralized.
She also described how Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs left staff uncertain about what kinds of conversations were still acceptable at work. She and her co‑workers, she said, were no longer sure whether they could organize support groups around veterans’ experiences of racism or discuss their own implicit bias. "It was a deluge of things," Goggin said. "Morale was very low."
Goggin ultimately left for private practice. She has said she misses the intensity and sense of purpose that came from serving veterans but appreciates the flexibility of her new work life. Still, she occasionally browses federal job postings, wondering if she might someday return to public service under different conditions.
Another former federal worker, Mahri Stainnak, had worked in the Office of Personnel Management’s DEI office, helping to recruit people from underrepresented communities into government jobs. Their outreach centered on veterans, people with disabilities and recent graduates, including those from minority‑serving institutions.
Stainnak, who uses they/them pronouns, told NPR they had moved to a new role shortly before Trump’s return to office but were nevertheless fired in 2025. They said the job market has been punishing and that they are still struggling to find full‑time work.
"It’s an incredibly difficult job market right now," Stainnak said. "Each application, each interview, the stakes feel so high." Losing their federal position meant losing family dental coverage, they said, forcing difficult choices about expenses, including dental care for their toddler.
Stainnak is among a group of former civil servants pursuing legal action that accuses the administration of targeting certain employees — including some involved in DEI work — because of their perceived political views or advocacy on behalf of protected groups. The White House has declined to comment on pending litigation.
The effects of the administration’s approach have been felt throughout the civil service, including among newer hires.
Keri Murphy joined the Commerce Department as an administrative employee in the summer of 2024. She said she was enthusiastic about building a career in government and had recently received recognition for strong performance. But in March 2025, Murphy was among a group of probationary employees who were abruptly let go as part of a broader reduction in staff.
Murphy told NPR that the firings were later challenged in court, with judges finding aspects of the purge improper. However, the rulings did not guarantee reinstatement for all affected workers. Murphy has since taken a lower‑paying job outside the federal government that does not offer the same level of benefits.
She said she would consider returning to federal service in the future, but not under the current administration.
Good‑government advocates warn that the scale and manner of the departures risk undermining the long‑term capacity of federal agencies. Max Stier, founding president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, has argued that moves to weaken civil‑service protections and push out experienced staff amount to a step back toward a 19th‑century‑style patronage system, in which loyalty to political leaders outweighs professional expertise.
"If you hollow out the career workforce and politicize key roles, you end up with a government that serves private and partisan interests rather than the public good," Stier has said in public comments about the administration’s agenda.
Trump and his allies frame the same actions as long‑overdue reforms. At campaign‑style rallies this year, the president has portrayed civil servants as an entrenched "deep state" resistant to his policies and has promised supporters he will end what he calls the "gravy train" for unelected bureaucrats.
A White House spokesperson has argued that the administration’s approach is making the government more efficient, pointing to efforts to modernize technology and streamline operations, including at agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Aviation Administration. Officials say they are focused on improving services, such as reducing wait times for veterans’ benefits and addressing delays in air traffic systems, though independent assessments of those claims remain limited.
Even as those debates continue, the numbers from OPM show the scope of the transformation underway. Hundreds of thousands of departures in a single year — driven by firings, buyouts, resignations and retirements — have left agencies scrambling to maintain basic functions and retain institutional knowledge. For workers like Goggin, Stainnak and Murphy, the consequences are deeply personal: careers upended, financial security shaken and public‑service ambitions put on hold.
