A new watchdog report shows the Trump administration cut more than 53,000 federal employees and nearly $2 billion in salary costs during its first year, a sharp reversal from the Biden-era hiring surge that preceded it.

The taxpayer watchdog group OpenTheBooks released its "Swamp Update" on Monday, documenting a federal workforce that shrank from 1,506,603 employees in 2024 to 1,452,891 in 2025, a net reduction of 53,712 positions. Federal payroll dropped by $1.86 billion over the same period, the New York Post reported.

The contrast with the prior administration is stark. In Joe Biden's final year in office, federal salaries surged by more than $10 billion, and the government added more than 13,000 employees to its rolls. The Trump administration moved in the opposite direction from day one, with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency spearheading layoffs and agency closures early in 2025 before the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management carried the effort forward.

At least 94 federal agencies reduced staff. Twenty-one agencies hired more workers. Eleven held steady. The numbers exclude the Department of Defense and the U.S. Postal Service, which together employ more than 3 million active-duty troops, reservists, and civilian workers, meaning the full picture of federal workforce changes is larger than the report captures.

Veterans Affairs lost 21,000 employees, more than any other agency

The Department of Veterans Affairs bore the heaviest cuts, with 21,428 employees leaving government service. The Department of Health and Human Services followed, shedding 13,580 workers. The Department of Education lost 1,518 employees, roughly 36 percent of its entire workforce, consistent with President Trump's pledge to abolish the department.

USAID, the foreign aid agency, was shuttered outright. Up to 3,500 employees exited federal roles, the agency's building was closed, and its remaining operations and staff were folded into the State Department. The move was among the most visible early actions taken by DOGE, which officially wound down its own operations in July.

The administration's approach extended well beyond voluntary attrition. AP News documented that approximately 75,000 federal employees accepted a "deferred resignation" offer with financial incentives as of mid-February 2025, and that the administration ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees on February 13, a directive that potentially affected up to 220,000 workers. Major agencies hit in that initial wave included the Defense Department, which cut 5,400 positions, HHS, which put more than 5,000 jobs at risk, the VA, which dismissed more than 1,000, and the National Park Service, which fired 1,000.

The scope of those early-2025 actions, driven by both DOGE and the broader White House apparatus, set the pace for what the OpenTheBooks data now quantifies over the full year.

OPM chief's count dwarfs the watchdog's net figure, and the gap matters

OPM Director Scott Kupor offered a far higher number in a post on X last December. He claimed that at least 249,000 people had left federal employment, with most departing voluntarily and around 17,000 terminated through formal reductions in force.

That figure, 249,000, is nearly five times the 53,712 net reduction documented by OpenTheBooks. Neither the OPM post nor the watchdog report, as described in available reporting, explains the discrepancy. The most likely explanation is that Kupor's number reflects gross departures, everyone who left, regardless of whether someone was hired to replace them, while OpenTheBooks measures the net change in total headcount. But neither source confirms that distinction explicitly, and the gap is wide enough to warrant clarity from both sides.

The administration's willingness to remove officials who resisted its agenda extended to the highest levels of the federal bureaucracy, not just rank-and-file employees. That pattern, cutting positions while also consolidating authority, has defined the administration's approach to a government it views as bloated and unaccountable.

DHS hired 8,000 workers while nearly every other major agency shrank

Not every agency lost ground. The Department of Homeland Security added 8,043 workers, the largest hiring increase of any federal agency, to support border security and immigration enforcement operations. The Department of the Interior brought on more than 3,000 new employees, and the Department of Transportation hired nearly 1,000.

The DHS hiring reflects the administration's decision to put resources behind its immigration enforcement priorities, even as it cut deeply elsewhere. For taxpayers who watched the Biden administration grow the federal workforce while border crossings surged, the reallocation carries a straightforward logic: fewer bureaucrats in Washington, more agents at the border.

The broader pattern across the intelligence and national security apparatus has also seen significant personnel turbulence, including high-profile departures and disputes that underscored the administration's willingness to challenge entrenched leadership across agencies.

Biden's final-year spending binge set the baseline

The $1.86 billion payroll reduction under Trump looks even more significant against the backdrop of what preceded it. Biden's last year in office saw federal salary expenditures climb by more than $10 billion, a figure that reflects both new hires and pay increases across the bureaucracy. The headcount grew by more than 13,000 employees during that period.

That surge meant Trump inherited a federal workforce near its recent peak. The 53,712-position net reduction does not return the government to pre-Biden staffing levels, but it represents the largest single-year contraction documented by OpenTheBooks.

Critics of the cuts have pointed to disruptions at agencies like the VA and the Department of Education, arguing that rapid workforce reductions affect services that millions of Americans depend on. Supporters counter that the federal government had grown far beyond what taxpayers can sustain and that many of the eliminated positions were redundant or tied to programs that produced little measurable benefit. Meanwhile, questions of accountability and waste in federal spending have surfaced in other contexts as well, including fraud cases involving billions in federal program dollars.

Open questions the numbers don't answer

The OpenTheBooks report provides a clear top-line picture, but several questions remain. The data does not break down how many of the 53,712 departures were voluntary resignations, involuntary terminations, or retirements. It does not detail the methodology behind its headcount comparison or specify the exact months covered by "first year." And the exclusion of the Defense Department and the Postal Service, two of the federal government's largest employers, means the report captures only a portion of the full workforce picture.

Kupor's 249,000 figure, offered without a detailed public accounting, raises its own questions. If most of those departures were voluntary, as he claimed, the administration can argue it offered federal workers an off-ramp and they took it. If the number includes workers who left and were later replaced, the net impact on government size is smaller than the headline suggests.

What the data does show clearly is direction. Under Biden, the federal government grew, in headcount, in payroll, and in cost to taxpayers. Under Trump, it shrank. Whether 53,000 positions or 249,000 departures is the better measure of that shift, the trend line runs one way.

The administration has also faced scrutiny over how it manages the military side of federal operations, where staffing and resource decisions carry immediate national security consequences. Balancing deep cuts in the civilian bureaucracy with adequate support for defense and border operations remains the central tension in the administration's efficiency agenda.

Fifty-three thousand fewer government employees and $1.86 billion back in the taxpayers' column is a start, but the real test is whether Washington can do more with less, or whether it was simply doing too much with too many for too long.