
President Trump’s 2026 budget request calls for the elimination of 107,000 jobs at non-defense federal agencies next year. If Congress enacts the request, the cuts would result in a 7% reduction in the non-defense federal force relative to 2025, according to Eric Katz of Government Executive.
The largest workforce reductions would occur in the Department of Education, where the staff would shrink by 38%. Significant cuts would also be rolled out in the Office of Personnel Management (-29%), NASA (-29%), Labor (-27%), Housing and Urban Development (-26%) and Agriculture (-22%).
Some departments would see entire offices all but eliminated. For example, as Katz notes, the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the Forest Service, which sits within the Department of Agriculture, would see nearly all its 4,000 employees fired, including most of the workers focused on forecasting snowpack and water supply.
The only agency that would see an increase in staff is the Department of Transportation, which would grow by 1% as a result of hiring by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The workforce reductions do not reflect the cuts that have already occurred or are planned for this year, nor does the budget request include any cuts in the Defense Department, where reductions of 60,000 are expected. As a result, the total federal job cuts recorded by the Trump administration in 2025 and 2026 could be considerably higher.