OPM on CrossGov.com

Federal Hiring After the Cuts: Strategic Hiring Committees, a One-for-Four Rule and 8,000 Jobs Moved to Schedule Policy-Career

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In August 2026 the federal government employed 2.674 million people on Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll figures, down 336,000 from 3.010 million in January 2025. GAO counted about 378,000 departures from 22 large agencies in 2025 against about 127,000 hires.

The government is hiring again, slowly, and under rules that look nothing like the old system. OPM’s own data, as of 10 October, show job announcements up 7.6% in fiscal 2026 on the year before, with 12,511 positions open.

DOGE Ends as GAO Calls Its $110 Billion Savings Claim Unreliable and the Federal Workforce Shrinks 11%

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Department of Government Efficiency formally ended on 4 July 2026, the date written into the executive order that created it. There was no closing report. OMB Director Russell Vought said there wouldn’t be one. In practice DOGE had stopped existing months earlier. In November 2025, Reuters quoted OPM Director Scott Kupor saying of it, “That doesn’t exist.” Its functions had been folded into OPM.

What DOGE leaves behind is two sets of numbers: the savings it claimed and the people who left government. GAO has now checked both.

New OPM Layoff Rules Put Performance Ahead of Seniority as Schedule Policy-Career Lawsuits Wait for a Ruling

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On 2 September a new Office of Personnel Management rule on reductions in force took effect. When agencies lay off staff, performance ratings now count ahead of tenure and length of service in deciding who stays. Under the old rules, which dated back decades, seniority and veterans’ preference weighed most. Companion rules move layoff appeals from the Merit Systems Protection Board to OPM itself.

The next round of federal layoffs, if there is one, will run under these rules. Four unions have sued over the companion rules in federal court in California.