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At least 20,000 federal workers have taken the Office of Personnel Management’s offer to resign by Thursday in exchange for a nearly eight-month buyout.
An agency spokesperson confirmed the development to The Independent and asserted the number of resignations is rapidly increasing ahead of the February 6 deadline.
Last week, the Trump White House sent an email to approximately two million federal employees stating that if they resigned by the date, they would retain pay and benefits through September 30 while being out on paid administrative leave. Immigration officers, Postal Service workers, armed forces and some national-security employees are not eligible for the program.
The offer came as the agency simultaneously announced a return-to-office directive, although it wasn’t clear when the transition was supposed to take place.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating heads of departments and agencies to take necessary steps to require employees to return to in-person work “as soon as practicable.”
The email announcing the resignation program instructed employees to reply “resign” in the body and hit send if they wanted to opt in. They’ll later receive an email confirming receipt with additional information on next steps.
The Trump administration said it wants a new federal workforce built around four pillars: Return to Office, performance culture, more streamlined and flexible workforce, and enhanced standards of conduct.
“If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce,” the email stated, without offering job assurance for those who stay.
“At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency, but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions,” the message noted.
The administration anticipates at least 10 percent of the workforce will accept the offer, but so far about one percent of federal workers have selected to take it.
Employees will be able to request a rescission of their resignation if they change their minds. Those requests will be reviewed by their respective agencies, although it’s not known if the requests will be honored.
An OPM memo with guidance on the resignations states: “It is the objective of the program to move quickly to consolidate and/or reassign roles and in many cases place employees on administrative leave which would likely serve as a valid reason to deny recission requests.”
Those who resign can also seek outside employment until their final employment date.
Trump heavily campaigned on eliminating large swaths of the federal workforce.
In November, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were set to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency before Ramaswamy dropped out, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal stating that “requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”
