Federal science workforce declines sharply under Trump

Federal science agencies shed more jobs in the past year than they did over the last two decades of steady decline, data published by the White House Office of Personnel Management reveals. The number of federal employees in the physical sciences fell 12% from 2024 to 2025, compared to an 8% decline from 1998 to 2024.

In the first full year of the second Trump administration, the White House pushed for cuts to the federal workforce by incentivizing staff to leave through the deferred resignation program, directly cutting probationary staff, asking agencies to submit plans for significant reductions-in-force, and issuing RIF notices. OPM’s most recent data release provides insight into the effects of these efforts at the agency level.

Agencies overseeing science have seen significant job losses since Trump took office, including over 30% at the National Science Foundation and around 20% at the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Institutes of Health. The Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology shrank by 17% and 15% respectively, while NASA lost 12% of its staff. In comparison, the total federal civilian workforce has fallen about 10% since January 2025.

These science agencies saw the greatest losses in administration and program management and analysis. They also collectively lost thousands of employees across engineering, health science, and physical science.

Changes to scientific staff at the Department of Defense are less clear, but DOD as a whole shed about 75,000 positions over the past year, including in research offices. The Office of Naval Research, for example, shrank by more than 400 people, about 14%.

Deferred resignations

Over 15,000 employees at science agencies left the federal workforce last year. Around 5,000 of those staff accepted offers from the deferred resignation program (DRP), in which the administration offered to continue paying full salaries to employees who resigned until Sept. 30, or until Dec. 31 if retirement-eligible.

The DRP affected science agencies unevenly. At NASA, 63% of the agency’s total departures last year were through the program. For DOE, NSF, and USGS, the DRP also accounted for more than 50% of separations last year. In comparison, the federal workforce overall dropped 10% in 2025, about half of which was through the DRP.

At NOAA, NIST, and NIH, the DRP accounted for less than 20% of separations last year. For instance, only about 80 of the more than 700 people who left NIST used the program. NOAA saw many non-DRP voluntary retirements, while many separations at NIH were due to non-DRP departures or reductions-in-force.

Some agencies offered multiple rounds of deferred resignations, and the current OPM data may not yet account for all employees who accepted the deferred resignation offer last year.

Probationary firings

Early last year, the administration carried out mass firings of employees who had not completed their probation period — typically of one year — and were easier to fire than longer-term employees. A court eventually ruled that the firings were illegal but did not mandate reinstatement for many of the fired individuals. Some employees went through multiple rounds of being fired and reinstated. Others were put on leave following reinstatement and did not return to work until months later, some as recently as December.

The number of probationary federal employees in the physical sciences in 2025 remains unclear due to redactions in the OPM data. Based on the unredacted data, the number of probationary federal employees in the physical sciences appears to fall sharply from 2024 to 2025. For instance, the Department of Energy had 116 physical sciences employees with less than one year of service in 2024, compared to just 12 such employees in 2025. However, the length of service of more than 200 DOE employees in 2025 is redacted, so the number with less than one year of service could be much higher than 12.

Reductions-in-force

OPM’s data reveals no completed reductions-in-force at most agencies overseeing science. NIH was a notable exception with 807 employees lost due to RIFs, including 340 across contracting and program management, 71 in general health science, 62 in writing and editing positions, and 50 in public affairs. NASA lost 13 employees as part of RIFs across program management, engineering, and physical science. NSF lost four employees as part of RIFs across program management and other administrative functions. The OPM data shows no separations due to RIFs at DOE, NOAA, NIST, or USGS.

Last year, the administration directed agencies to produce plans for “large-scale” RIFs by March, then again asked for similar plans in advance of the government shutdown in October. The Energy, Commerce, and Health and Human Services departments collectively issued around 1,300 RIF notices during the shutdown, which were temporarily blocked in court and later by the stopgap funding law until Feb. 13.

Workforce additions

Both the high number of separations and the low number of new hires contributed to the federal workforce drop in 2025. The employees added at agencies overseeing science constituted no more than 2% of the total workforce of those agencies, while separation rates ranged from 7% to 30% at those same agencies. The administration froze federal hiring beginning in January last year, and the freeze is now ongoing indefinitely.