Overview

• Official resignations begin Tuesday for Deferred Resignation Program participants kept on paid leave through September, marking the largest single‑year civil service exodus in nearly eight decades.
• Reuters reports 154,000 departures tied to the buyouts, while other outlets cite roughly 100,000, reflecting differing counts as employees come off the payroll.
• Unions and governance experts report operational strain across agencies, citing lost technical staff at the National Weather Service, thousands of departures at NASA, and research gaps at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.
• Health agencies are also affected, with HHS targeting cuts at FDA and CDC and staff describing challenges such as updating the National Youth Tobacco Survey.
• OPM says the program will save about $28 billion annually and projects a broader reduction of around 300,000 federal positions by year‑end, a figure Reuters has not independently verified.