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U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told employees in a town hall on May 2 that he’s planning to reduce the department’s workforce at the end of the month.
“We’re trying to make the department more efficient,” he said according to a recording of the session viewed by Bloomberg. “I’ve been given that directive by the president.”
There have been two buyouts, or deferred resignation offers, extended to Transportation Department employees since President Donald Trump took office that would allow workers to voluntarily resign but continue getting paid through the end of September.
Government agencies across the board are under a directive from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to cut the number of federal employees. Agencies were told earlier in the year to submit plans for large-scale job cuts and reorganizations.
Duffy said he couldn’t say yet how big the layoffs would be because it depends on how many people take and qualify for the buyout program. He noted that the number of people requesting to take the deferred resignation offer hasn’t been equally spread out through the different parts of the department, which has created “a bit of a balance problem.”
A person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg last month that about 4,000 transportation employees sought to take the second buyout, but that the number was fluid and the department was reviewing the requests to determine who was eligible.
The Transportation Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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