Politics
Over 150,000 US federal workers quit in mass exit
WASHINGTON: More than 150,000 US federal workers are leaving their jobs this week in what experts are calling the biggest single-year loss of government talent in decades.
The mass exit, triggered by a buyout scheme, has raised fears of a serious “brain drain” as thousands of experienced staff walk away, taking with them years of knowledge and expertise that kept vital services running.
The official resignations begin on Tuesday for workers who opted into a deferred exit programme that kept them on the payroll through September. The buyouts are a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s push to shrink the federal workforce, combining financial incentives with threats of dismissal for those who declined the offer.
Many left their agencies months ago, according to the federal government’s HR office, and have effectively been on paid leave.
Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, said the biggest impact of this week’s exodus will be the brain drain of so many experienced civil servants, a loss of talent he says will be hard to reverse.
“It takes years to develop deep knowledge and expertise to deliver the government programmes that these people run. Now much of the knowledge is walking out the door,” Moynihan said.
The loss of expertise is making it harder for many agencies to carry out their work and serve the American public, according to interviews with a dozen current and former government employees and union officials.
The buyouts have adversely impacted a wide range of government activities, including weather forecasting, food safety, health programmes and space projects, according to the people who spoke to Reuters.
At the National Weather Service, nearly 200 people took buyouts, causing a loss of technical staff who maintain forecasting equipment and many experienced meteorologists.
“It has caused massive disruption in offices throughout the country,” said Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organisation.
Jasmine Blackwell, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the weather service, said jobs were being offered as needed “to ensure both the safety of Americans and the responsible use of taxpayer dollars.”
Democratic former President Bill Clinton holds the post-World War Two record for government employment reduction, but that was over the full eight years of his two-term presidency. Clinton oversaw a federal workforce reduction of more than 430,000, or about 20%.
At the same time, though, a red-hot economy and tech boom produced more than 22 million private-sector jobs during Clinton’s term, and his federal workforce cuts left no visible imprint on the overall job market.
NASA brain drain
Nearly 4,000 NASA employees took the two buyouts the Trump administration offered in January and April, said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, a union that represents 8,000 NASA employees.
“The agency is losing some of the most brilliant engineers and aeronautic scientists in the world, and they are not being replaced,” Biggs said.
Cheryl Warner, a NASA spokesperson, said the agency is pursuing a “golden age” of exploration and innovation, including to the moon and Mars.
“The agency will continue to assess the types of skills and roles needed to meet our priorities,” she said.
The buyouts, which have been taken by 154,000 workers, were part of a broader push by Trump, a Republican, and his billionaire former adviser Elon Musk, who argued that the federal workforce had become too big and too inefficient. Opposition Democrats say the cuts have been indiscriminate.
The US government spent $359 billion on civilian employee pay and benefits in the 2023 budget year, according to the most recently available published figures.
Through a combination of buyouts, firings and other incentives for workers to quit, the Trump administration will likely shed around 300,000 workers by the end of this year, its human resources chief said in August, which would amount to a 12.5% decrease in the federal workforce since January.
The buyouts will produce an estimated $28 billion in savings annually, said McLaurine Pinover, a spokeswoman at the Office of Personnel and Management, which handles federal human resources matters. Reuters could not independently verify whether that figure is accurate.
“The Deferred Resignation Programme delivered incredible relief to the American taxpayer,” Pinover said.
The exit of so many workers from the federal payroll at once is unlikely to affect the national unemployment rate, as the federal workforce accounts for less than 1.5% of all payroll employment, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.
Buyouts take toll on health agencies
At the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, roughly 1,200 employees took resignation offers, about 17% of the agency’s staff.
One of those was a scientist who specialised in rapid detection of fungal toxins in grain elevators, which helps farmers and grain processors assess whether crops are contaminated, said Ethan Roberts, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3247, a union which represents some ARS employees.
Without the scientist’s highly specialised knowledge, there is no one to carry forward that work, Roberts said. Contaminated grains can severely sicken or even kill people and livestock, according to the World Health Organisation.
A USDA spokesperson said the agency will maintain all its critical functions despite the departure of more than 15,000 workers through the resignation programmes.
The buyouts have also taken a toll on health agencies, including the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr announced in March that the department would cut 10,000 employees through a combination of layoffs and buyouts. He said they would include 3,500 at the FDA and 2,400 at the CDC.
A federal employee, granted anonymity for fear of retribution, said the FDA was struggling to update its National Youth Tobacco Survey, which collects data on tobacco use among US middle and high-school students, because of buyouts and layoffs at the tobacco prevention and control unit of the CDC.
Andrew G Nixon, an HHS spokesman, said suggestions of a “brain drain” were misplaced and that the CDC and FDA remain deeply committed to tobacco prevention and control.
Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on Saturday she had “no regrets” about symbolically handing over her Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump in January.
“There is a leader in the world, a head of state in the world who risked the lives of his country’s citizens for Venezuela’s freedom,” she told a news conference in Madrid.
Machado presented her Nobel prize to Trump when she met him in the White House just two weeks after he ordered US forces to attack Caracas and snatch Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Trump, who has long coveted the award, is currently embroiled in the Middle East war he started with his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with airstrikes on Iran at the end of February.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the peace prize, made clear after Machado handed her 2025 Nobel medal to Trump that the actual honour it represents “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others”.
Machado said Trump’s military operation to snatch Maduro, who is currently detained in New York facing US drug charges, was “something we Venezuelans will never forget”.
“Consequently,” she said, “no, I have no regrets” about gifting her Nobel medal to Trump.
Machado, who was in hiding before leaving Venezuela in December to collect her Nobel prize in Oslo, said she was organising her return to the country in coordination with Washington.
Later, she told thousands of supporters at a gathering in Madrid that they should be preparing to go back home.
“Everything we have done over these long 27 years has been to prepare ourselves for a moment of reunion and of building a nation that will be free forever,” she said, referring to the period under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
Venezuela’s opposition last week called for presidential elections.
Machado, who has not yet said if she would run in a future poll, was banned from running for president in the 2024 election that resulted in Maduro claiming a re-election victory that opposition groups say was rigged.
- Khamenei says Iran army defending its land, water.
- Says Iran exposed weakness, humiliation of hostile armies.
- US president warns Iran against “blackmailing.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned Saturday that Tehran’s navy was ready to defeat the US and Israeli forces, as the foes sparred over the Strait of Hormuz.
In a series of posts on X, Khamenei said: “In the same way that the drones of Iran’s Army strike the US and the Zionist murderers like lightning, its valiant navy is also ready to inflict new bitter defeats on its enemies.”
His remarks came as Iran said it is tightening control over the strait, warning mariners that the key energy lifeline was again closed, while shipping sources said at least two vessels came under fire while attempting to transit the waterway.
The Iranian supreme leader said that their army is standing side by side with their comrades from the other armed forces, battling the two leading armies of “disbelief and Arrogance”.
“Islamic Army has exposed those armies’ weakness and humiliation to the world, he added.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army is now courageously defending the land, water, and flag that belong to it,” added Khamenei.
Uncertainty around war
Tehran’s renewed tough messaging caused fresh uncertainty around the Iran conflict, raising the risk that oil and gas shipments through the strait could remain disrupted just as Washington weighs whether to extend the fragile ceasefire.
Trump said the US was having “very good conversations” with Iran but that Tehran wanted to close the strait again. Iran could not blackmail the US, he said.
Maritime security and shipping sources said some merchant vessels had received radio messages from Iran’s navy saying no ships were allowed through the waterway, reversing Friday’s signs that traffic might resume.
Maritime trackers had earlier shown a convoy of eight tankers transiting the narrow passage in the first major movement of ships since the US-Israeli war on Iran began seven weeks ago.
Hours earlier, Trump had cited “some pretty good news” about Iran, declining to elaborate. But he also said fighting might resume without a peace deal by Wednesday, when the two-week ceasefire expires.
Iran had announced its temporary reopening of the Strait of Hormuz following a separate US-brokered 10-day ceasefire agreement on Thursday between Israel and Lebanon. Israel invaded parts of southern Lebanon after the Iran-allied Hezbollah militant group joined the fighting in early March.
But on Saturday, Iran’s armed forces command said transit through the strait had reverted to a state of strict Iranian military control, citing what it described as repeated US violations and acts of “piracy” under the guise of a blockade.
The spokesperson said Iran had earlier agreed, “in good faith,” to the managed passage of a limited number of oil tankers and commercial vessels following negotiations, but said continued US actions had forced Tehran to restore tighter controls on shipping through the strategic chokepoint.
US Central Command said in a statement that American forces were enforcing a maritime blockade of Iran, but did not comment on the latest Iranian actions.
No date for direct talks
The war with Iran began on February 28 with a US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic. It has killed thousands, spread to Israeli attacks in Lebanon and sent oil prices surging because of the de facto closure of the strait.
Despite the initial movement of ships, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said no date had been set for the next round of negotiations, adding that a framework of understanding must be agreed first.
Pressure for a way out of the war has mounted as Trump’s fellow Republicans defend narrow majorities in Congress in the November midterm elections with US gasoline prices high, inflation rising and his own approval ratings down.
“The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and that supersedes everything else,” Trump said on Friday.
Trump also said he might end the ceasefire with Iran unless a long-term deal to end the war was agreed before it expires on Wednesday, adding that a US blockade of Iranian ports would continue.
There were no signs of preparations early on Saturday for talks in the Pakistani capital, where the highest-level US-Iran negotiations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ended without agreement last weekend.
A Pakistani source aware of mediation efforts had said a meeting between Iran and the US could produce an initial memorandum of understanding, followed by a comprehensive peace agreement within 60 days.
Separately, a senior Iranian official said Tehran hoped a preliminary agreement could be reached in the coming days.
Oil prices fell about 10% and global stocks jumped on Friday on the prospect of marine traffic resuming through the strait. Despite that, hundreds of vessels and about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf awaiting passage through the waterway, shipping sources said.
At last weekend’s talks, the US proposed a 20-year suspension of all Iranian nuclear activity, while Iran suggested a halt of three to five years, according to people familiar with the proposals. Two Iranian sources have said there were signs of a compromise that could remove part of the stockpile.
The head of Russia’s state atomic energy company, Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said on Saturday that Rosatom was ready to help with the removal of enriched uranium from Iran, and that the company was closely following the progress of US-Iran talks.
— With additional input from Reuters
- More than dozen tankers passed through when strait reopened.
- UK Navy reported that Iranian gunboats fired at some ships.
- Hundreds of ships remain stranded and oil flows disrupted.
OSLO: More than a dozen tankers, including three sanctioned vessels, passed through the Strait of Hormuz after a 50-day blockade was lifted on Friday, shipping data showed, before Iran reimposed restrictions on Saturday and fired at some vessels.
Reopening the strait is key for Gulf producers to resume full oil and gas supplies to the world, and end what the International Energy Agency has called the worst-ever supply disruption.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday Iran had agreed to open the strait, while Iranian officials said they wanted the US to fully lift its blockade of Iranian tankers.
Western shipping companies cautiously welcomed the announcements but said more clarity was needed, including on the presence of sea mines, before their vessels could transit.
Iran resumes restrictions
The ships that passed through the strait on Friday and Saturday via Iranian waters south of Larak island were mainly older, non-Western-owned vessels and included four sanctioned ships, according to ship-tracking data.
Iran arranged passage for a limited number of oil tankers and commercial ships following prior agreements in negotiations, a spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said.
Other ships have been seen approaching the strait and turning back as Iran said it would maintain strict controls as long as the US continues its blockade of Iranian ports.
The UK Navy reported on Saturday that Iranian gunboats fired at some ships attempting to cross the strait.
Some merchant vessels received radio messages from Iran’s navy saying the strait was shut again and that no ships were allowed to pass, shipping sources said on Saturday.
Ship-tracking data showed five vessels loaded with liquefied natural gas from Ras Laffan in Qatar approaching the strait on Saturday morning.
No LNG cargoes have transited the waterway since the US-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28.
Hundreds of ships have been stuck in the Gulf since the conflict started and Tehran closed the strait, forcing Gulf oil and gas producers to sharply cut production.
Top producers such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq and Kuwait say they need steady tanker flows and unrestricted passage through the strait to resume normal export operations.
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