Court ruling will not help federal government unions with firings. Unions have to try to use a particular process related to union agreement and laws. Filing also says

Roughly 220,000 workers are considered probationary and another 345,000 were deemed nonessential during the last major government shutdown during Mr. Trump's first term. This puts the range at 400,000 to 700,000 reductions when including other firings and agency shutdowns.

So far this week

6700 IRS to be laid off Feb 10

~10000 USAID

Thousands from HHS

2000 Dept of Energy

Dept of Agriculture 1000+

Veteran affairs 1000+

Dept of Interior 2300

Small Business Admin 720

Homeland Security 405

EPA 388

NSF 168

Office of personnel 200

GSA 100

So this is about 25000

the 200,000 ish probationary staff

77000 who took the buyout

There are 220,000 probationary staff.

@brianwang I think it's likely that about 40-70% (let's say 120k) of those are laid off, and the rest are deemed necessary. Then, an additionally 60k or so from the buyouts by end of year. That gets you to 180k. The question is, is there a clear mechanism to fire another 70k (and keep in mind, any HIRING the admin does offsets this number)? I think the market is sort of well-priced right now.

@benshindel

All agencies are to submit reduction in force plans

Early retirement offers

Moving agency HQ from DC to other states. Some will refuse to move.

If negotiations of halving military budgets work in any significant way then 130k less for every 10% reduction.

IRS reductions will be steep, I think 50-70%

Deep cuts at EPA, NIH

Privatization and cuts at USPS

The bills are coming from congress to officially reorganize or virtually eliminate agencies

Dept of Education about 4k in cuts coming

Project 2025 calls for a 50 percent reduction in federal employees within a year, and a 75 percent reduction within four years. This would significantly impact the VA and potentially the USPS, as veterans make up about 30 percent of the federal workforce. Project 2025 aims to privatize VA Health Care and the Department of Defense TRICARE system. This could lead to further staff reductions in these agencies.

IF the active US military is cut in half with negotiations with China and Russia then the number of future veterans will be cut in half. There would be less future demand. Big buckets would be privatizing Veteran affairs and USPS.

Before individual agency plans already had top down actions

Department of Energy: 1,200 - 2,000

• Department of Veterans Affairs: Over 1,000 (excluding exempt probationary staff)

• U.S. Forest Service: 3,400

• Small Business Administration: 720

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Dozens (exact number not specified)

• CDC 1200

• CIA, FBI and DOJ firings are nearing 1000 and will soon be about 10k-20K

USAID 10000

up to 200k probationary layoffs

77,000 voluntary buyouts.

IF probationary layoffs are 153,000 then we will soon be at 250,000 (once voluntary layoffs are taken)

@brianwang I think you’re double counting a lot of these.

@benshindel I think the probationary category layoffs will be in the 90%+ range. Why would someone there less than 2 years be deemed essential when there are 90% of the other staff still there. Only some who were promoted and there say 15-20 years and got categorized as probationary might be deemed essential. But if the goal was to get rid of 50% in 1 year and 75% in 4 years then even those somewhat useful would be let go. This would put the probationary layoffs at 97-100%. In private layoffs, someone could be the only person who knows something at the time but the others can figure it out. They just did not before because they were not forced to pick it up.

This would mean 190,000 probationary and 77000 from the buyout. 10,000 from firings already in place and another 10,000+ firings per month. Closing in on 300,000 before the agency by agency plans are made and implemented. Agency plans I expect to see 5% more firings, 10-15% early retirement and more bonus to quit offers.

All probationary and new hires of less than 2 years are getting kicked out. Already thousands from each of many major agencies. They were shooting for 10% and got 3% and now they will get the next 7% with firings. It will have turned out to have been better to take the 8 month deal for many.

Trump is starting talks with Russia and China to halve military spending. This would also mean roughly halving the size of the military. us would drop from 1.3 million to 650k. China would go from 2 million to 1 million. Russia 1.5 million to 750k. That is the vision trump is proposing.

@brianwang I think this question doesn't include the military.

I guess it does count a large number of civilians who work in the Department of Defense, though.

According to reddit, a confirmed list of agencies with layoffs to probationary employees:

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

• Department of Education

• Department of Energy

• General Services Administration

• Office of Personnel Management

• Small Business Administration

• US Forest Service

• Veterans Affairs

• National Nuclear Security Administration

Rumored but not confirmed: EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, DOJ, HHS, CISA, FAA, CIA, DoD, Dept of State, USDA, IRS, VBA, Dept of Interior

https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1iouytl/list_of_agencies_with_mass_layoffs_to/

LET'S GOOOOOOO

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/12/politics/mass-firings-federal-agencies/index.html

@Shai JFC … what are they doing

@NicoDelon draining the swamp, finally

The sweepstakes market for this question has been resolved to partial as we are shutting down sweepstakes. Please read the full announcement here. The mana market will continue as usual.

Only markets closing before March 3rd will be left open for trading and will be resolved as usual.

Users will be able to cashout or donate their entire sweepcash balance, regardless of whether it has been won in a sweepstakes or not, by March 28th (for amounts above our minimum threshold of $25).

Why did this resolve at 42%?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-workforce-optimization-initiative/

"The Plan shall require that each agency hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart, consistent with the plan and any applicable exemptions and details provided for in the Plan.  This order does not affect the standing freeze on hiring as applied to the Internal Revenue Service.  This ratio shall not apply to functions related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement [...] Sec 3  (c): Reductions in Force.  Agency Heads shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with applicable law, and to separate from Federal service temporary employees and reemployed annuitants working in areas that will likely be subject to the RIFs.  All offices that perform functions not mandated by statute or other law shall be prioritized in the RIFs, including all agency diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; all agency initiatives, components, or operations that my Administration suspends or closes; and all components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or other law who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations as provided in the Agency Contingency Plans on the Office of Management and Budget website.  This subsection shall not apply to functions related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement. "

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla. first Democrat to join the House’s DOGE caucus. Executive order for workforce optimization initiative, Agencies must work with DOGE for deep reductions in force.

Likely halving the staff at NIH (18K), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (12K), NSF (2K). This would mean about 16K staff reductions. Russell Vought now heads the Office of Management and budget and Vought has declared staff cuts of that level before for these particular agencies.

This is an interesting market! Curious to see how it plays out.

FRED published their data point for January: 3024k

@Ziddletwix will this be the data point you use as the “before” point for resolving this market?

@SteveAcomb if this just gets auto-resolved to whatever the Kalshi market resolves to, then it’s entirely possible that they use this month-end data point as the basis, erasing any immediate effects the EOs had in January.

@SteveAcomb

@Ziddletwix will this be the data point you use as the “before” point for resolving this market?

I assume so? My plan is to resolve as closely to the written description as possible. Currently, that seems like the "January employee count" to me. But in case that number gets revised, or someone points out that this isn't what they mean by "January employee count", then the baseline could shift.

it’s entirely possible that they use this month-end data point as the basis, erasing any immediate effects the EOs had in January.

I dunno exactly how the monthly FRED data is calculated (this question might be quite sensitive to that methodology), but fwiw that Jan # is up from Dec, so it's not like there was some obvious drop from the EOs that this baseline number now accounts for. We'd be starting from a higher baseline than we've had outside of COVID/financial crisis, so it should be a pretty fair way to account for Trump's impact going forward.

My understanding is that the resigners won’t be counted in this stat until October (FY2026) since they’re keeping their positions until then and just not doing any work.

@Gabrielle Likewise. I was referring to the hiring freeze.

@Ziddletwix

The Kalshi market links to the FRED page
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001, which says: The series comes from the 'Current Employment Statistics (Establishment Survey).'

From https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesprog.htm: Reference Period

The survey reference period is the pay period including the 12th of the month. This can vary according to an establishment's length of pay period, a factor taken into account when compiling the data.

So the Jan 2025 number should be pre-Trump