Trump signs executive order to drastically reduce federal workforce

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to drastically reduce the number of federal workers.

The executive order, signed on Tuesday, will compel agencies to work with Elon Musk's government reform unit to identify large-scale reductions in force and determine which agency components may be eliminated outright.

It will also set forth rules requiring government agencies to hire no more than one employee for every four workers who leave the federal workforce, according to the White House fact sheet.

Federal employees whose work is "critical to national security, public safety, law enforcement, and immigration enforcement" would be exempted.

Trump has said the steps are needed to make government work more efficiently.

Govt cuts

The new steps further empower Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to carry out sweeping government cuts, limit hiring and restructure the government to focus on Trump's agenda.

It was likely to face legal challenges as a planned buyout for federal employees remains blocked in the courts, and a judge has paused efforts to put US Agency for International Development workers on leave.

There are about 2.3 million US civilian employees, excluding the Postal Service.

Security-related agencies account for the bulk of the federal workforce, but hundreds of thousands of people work across the country in jobs overseeing veterans' healthcare, inspecting agriculture and paying the government's bills, among other jobs.

The share of federal employees as a percentage of the full non-farm workforce, now under 2 percent, has been on the decline for decades.