About 5,400 Defense Department employees will lose their jobs next week, the first cuts in what will ultimately be a five-to-eight-percent reduction of the civilian workforce, a Pentagon official said Friday.
The cost-saving goal was announced in a statement released by Darin Selnick, who is temporarily serving as DOD’s personnel chief. The department employed 764,000 civilians as of June 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data, which means more than 61,000 people could lose their jobs.
Selnick said the first 5,400 to get the axe will be “probationary employees”—generally speaking, people who have been promoted or hired within the past year; such workers have fewer civil-service protections.
The news comes after a week in which Pentagon organizations compiled lists of their probationary employees and requesting exemptions from sweeping staff reductions.