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WASHINGTON (AP) — Roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs will be cut in the Defense Department, but fewer than 21,000 workers who took a voluntary resignation plan are leaving in the coming months, a senior defense official told reporters Tuesday.
To reach the goal of a 5% to 8% cut in a civilian workforce of more than 900,000, the official said, the Pentagon aims to slash about 6,000 positions a month by simply not replacing workers who routinely leave.
A key concern is that service members may then be tapped to fill those civilian jobs left empty by the hiring freeze. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide personnel details, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to ensure the cuts don’t hurt military readiness.
The cuts are part of the broader effort by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk ‘s Department of Government Efficiency Service to slash the federal workforce and dismantle U.S. agencies.
Acknowledging that “some” military veterans will be among the civilians let go, the official would not estimate how many but agreed it could be thousands.
The department is using three ways to accomplish the workforce cuts: voluntary resignations, firing probationary workers and cutting jobs as employees routinely leave. The official said the military services and Pentagon officials are going over the personnel on a case-by-case basis to ensure cuts don’t affect critical national security jobs.
Officials would not say how many Defense Department civilians requested the voluntary resignation plan — also known as the “Fork in the Road” offer — but said more requested it than the number who eventually were approved.
The defense official said the “vast majority” were allowed but that in some cases, people were denied for national security reasons or to make sure that too many people in one office didn’t all leave.
He added that Hegseth also has given the secretaries of the military branches and Defense Department personnel leaders the authority to grant exemptions to the hiring freeze.
An average of 70,000 civilians are hired each year, which amounts to about 6,000 a month, he said. Because the services have a good deal of latitude in determining which jobs should not be subject to the freeze, it’s not clear what portion of those 70,000 would actually be eliminated.
Plans to cut probationary workers, which the Pentagon said targeted about 5,400 of the roughly 54,000 in the department, are already on hold due to court challenges. Federal judges ordered the administration to rehire thousands, if not tens of thousands, of probationary workers that had been let go, finding legal problems with the way the mass terminations were carried out.
The official added that Hegseth is confident the staffing cuts can be done without negatively affecting military readiness. The Pentagon chief last month in Germany noted that he was planning to welcome DOGE to the Pentagon, adding that “there are waste, redundancies and headcounts in headquarters that need to be addressed.”
Across the government, about 75,000 federal workers are being let go through “deferred resignation program” buyouts. And at least 24,000 probationary employees were initially let go in the now-paused mass firings across multiple agencies since Trump took office, according to lawsuits challenging the firings. The government has not confirmed that number.
The personnel reductions come as top Democrats on the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees have filed a lengthy Freedom of Information Act request questioning whether the Trump administration’s DOGE Service is operating “outside the bounds of federal law,” The Associated Press has learned.
In addition, President Donald Trump has ordered a large-scale reduction in force to cut jobs and reduce the overall size of the government. Defense officials could not provide any details on what that would do at the Pentagon or what proposed cuts are being discussed.
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Associated Press broadcast writer Sagar Meghani contributed to this report.
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