Federal Layoffs Impact Early Retirement and Probationary Workers—Where Are They?

Workers eligible for voluntary early retirement and probationary workers face the brunt of federal reductions, with significant state-by-state variations in impact. According to multipliers from JobsEQ by Chmura, each laid-off federal worker can further impact an average of 1.3 other jobs at businesses that support the government agency and through the reduced local spending. Some states will feel these effects more than others.

Patrick Clapp

Apr 1, 2025

As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) pursues government efficiency by significantly reducing the federal workforce, new layoff announcements emerge almost daily. As of March 28, 2025, more than 247,000 layoffs have been announced across at least 13 agencies. accounting for more than 10% of the federal workforce. Many of the reports also include counts of workers who have accepted deferred resignation offers or elected for early retirement, as well as probationary workers who were laid off in February and have not returned. The table below summarizes the announced impacts by agency.

Table: More than 247,000 Federal Layoffs Have Been Announced

			--Cuts Include Already Announced--
Agency	Cuts (% Agency Employment)	Total Cuts Announced	Deferred and Voluntary Early Retirement	Probationary Layoffs
Department of Defense (DoD)	8%	76,000	-	5,400
Department of Education (ED)	50%	1,315	572	63
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)	7%	1,155	-	-
Housing and Urban Development (HUD)	2%	144	-	-
Health and Human Services (HHS)	32%	20,000	10,000	-
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)	17%	3,500	-	-
National Institutes of Health (NIH)	6%	1,200	-	-
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)	19%	2,400	-	-
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services	5%	300	-	-
Internal Revenue Service (IRS)	50%	45,000	-	7,000
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)	5%	923	900	-
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)	20%	1,029	500	800
National Park Service (NPS)	30%	2,652	700	1,000
Small Business Administration (SBA)	43%	2,700	-	-
Social Security Administration (SSA)	12%	7,000	-	-
United States Postal Service (USPS)	2%	10,000	10,000	-
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)	17%	80,000	-	2,400
Source: Chmura Economics & Analytics, FedScope September 2024, news reports. Note: Dashes "-" indicate the value is unknown or not-existent as of the writing of this piece.

While probationary workers are facing mixed messages about returning to work after being laid off in February, agencies are largely relying on voluntary early retirements to help meet their staff reduction targets. The Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) allows agencies to temporarily lower requirements for retirement to encourage more employees to leave voluntarily. To qualify for VERA, employees must be 50 or older with at least 20 years of Federal service, or any age with at least 25 years of Federal service.

The Office of Personnel Management’ s FedScope database (latest data from September 2024), provides estimates for the number of workers eligible for VERA based on age, service length, and department. Chmura also compiled the number of probationary workers based on workers with less than two years of tenure in their role. This may be considered a conservative analysis as the United States Postal Service is not included in this database; however, impacts are expected to broadly follow population.

Where Are the Most Affected Workers

Maryland has the most workers eligible for early retirement, with nearly 23,000 as of last September. California ranks second with nearly 17,500, followed by Virginia (16,800) and Texas (14,400). Vermont has the lowest number of eligible workers at just 190, and 12 other states have less than 1,000. Assuming the reductions in workforce follow a similar distribution, the D.C. area, California, and Texas can expect to face significantly greater impacts than other states.

The most impacted states can also be measured as a percentage of the total workforce. As the home of the federal government, it’s no surprise to see Washington, D.C. rank highest by this measure, with early retirement eligible or probationary workers accounting for 2.0% of total employment. Maryland (1.3%) and Virginia (0.8%) rank second and fourth, respectively, with Hawaii (1.0%) ranked third. A table with the full rankings is provided at the bottom of this blog.

Source: Chmura, FedScope, BLS

The picture changes considerably when examining layoffs by agency. Virginia is heavily affected by Defense Department cuts, with over 29,000 VERA eligible or probationary workers—over 10,000 more than the second-ranked state of California (18,300). Impacts at the Department of Health and Human Services are most likely to be felt in Maryland (9,762 VERA or probationary workers), Georgia (3,189), Arizona (1,537), and New Mexico (1,261). While states like Wyoming and South Dakota may largely avoid major layoffs, they could still be impacted by job losses at the National Park Service. Eligible workers in the Small Business Association are mostly concentrated in Texas (639). Notably, the Internal Revenue Service is the only agency with fewer VERA eligible or probationary workers (33,922) than announced layoffs (45,000). These workers are spread across the country, but especially concentrated in Texas (3,554), Georgia (3,003), Utah (2,846), Tennessee (2,787), and Pennsylvania (2,674).

New details on how agencies will handle these layoffs is expected to continue to be released and revised over the next several weeks, but the distribution of workers eligible for early retirement and probationary workers highlights the parts of the country most likely to be impacted. The interactive map below provides additional details by agency as we continue to track how the layoffs are impacting communities.