New federal data provides detailed insight into changes in federal employment within the District.
It’s been a year since the new administration began efforts to reduce the federal workforce. Recent reports estimate that the District metro region lost about 72,000 jobs. With the newly released federal Office of Personnel Management data, we can delve deeper into these employment changes. ORA’s recent blog on the November jobs report noted that total jobs in the District had fallen to 739,200, largely due to the federal Deferred Resignation Program. Overall, the District saw 30,813 separations from January through December 2025. However, during the same period, the District recorded new federal government hiring of 8,457 employees. The majority of this hiring is attributable to increased staffing in the Federal Air Traffic Organization and other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and Department of Justice. To understand the separations and their impact on the District, ORA downloaded data from the Office of Personnel Management on federal separations. Overall, we found that despite the increased hiring, the net loss to the District is about 22,356 jobs and $3.656 billion in annualized pay.
Separations between January and December 2025
Filtering the data to only those separations that reported the District as their “duty station” or where they report for work, ORA analyzed monthly separations from federal agencies. Graph 1 reports this information by month for the District.
As shown in Graph 1, the District saw the largest loss of federal employees in September, when many federal buyouts took effect on September 30. Excluding September, the District lost about 1,811 federal jobs per month. According to OPM data, 4,912 of the September separations were due to employees quitting, and another 4,617 were retirements.
Table 1: Total Separations for 2025 by Type of Separations and Total Annualized Pay
| Separation Type | Total DC Separations | Total DC Annual Wages |
| QUIT | 12,551 | $ 1,789,173,311 |
| RETIREMENT - VOLUNTARY | 8,026 | $ 1,342,959,591 |
| REDUCTION IN FORCE (RIF) | 3,774 | $ 561,313,784 |
| TERMINATION (EXPIRED APPT/OTHER) | 2,622 | $ 244,751,674 |
| RETIREMENT - EARLY OUT | 2,522 | $ 445,690,597 |
| OTHER SEPARATION | 786 | $ 95,104,929 |
| RETIREMENT - OTHER | 532 | $ 87,729,350 |
| TOTAL | 30,813 | $ 4,566,723,236 |
Retirements among federal employees (voluntary, early-out, and other) accounted for 11,080, or a little more than a third of the federal job losses in the District in 2025. Over this period, the average salary of an employee who left was $148,208. The agencies with the largest reductions during this period were the Department of Justice, Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Transportation, and Department of Homeland Security.
Table 2: Top Ten Total DC Federal Workforce Reductions in 2025, by Agency
| Federal Agency | Total DC Separations | Total DC Annual Wages |
| DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE | 3,097 | $ 488,947,072 |
| DEPARTMENT OF STATE | 3,060 | $ 419,550,414 |
| U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEV | 2,673 | $ 421,392,481 |
| DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION | 2,369 | $ 301,686,586 |
| DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | 2,326 | $ 351,246,650 |
| DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY | 1,701 | $ 271,940,977 |
| DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES | 1,360 | $ 198,074,899 |
| DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE | 1,167 | $ 166,207,397 |
| DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION | 999 | $ 151,305,474 |
| DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY | 997 | $ 127,743,785 |
| TOTAL | 19,749 | $ 2,898,095,735 |
As shown in Table 2, these ten agencies accounted for nearly 64.1 percent of total employment separations and 63.5 percent of total wages lost during this period.
Demography of the Separations
In terms of the level of loss, the District lost a significant share of its federal employment knowledge base. Among those with some college or higher education, these separations accounted for 77.9 percent of the total federal employment loss in the District. This loss amounts to approximately $3.738 billion in total annual pay lost from these federal separations. Graph 2 reports the loss by educational attainment level for those with some college or more. Those with a bachelor’s degree or more accounted for 85.3 percent of this total.
In terms of age, about 53 percent of those who separated from federal employment during this period were younger than 50. These employees accounted for approximately 45 percent of the total federal pay lost, or about $2.1 billion.
Table 3 reports the age ranges of those employees who separated from federal employment by separation type during this period.
| Age Range of Federal Employee | Quit | Retired (Volunatary, Early, or Other) | Reduction in Force (RIF) | Termination | Other Separation | Total |
| LESS THAN 20 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 21 |
| 20-24 | 562 | 1 | 30 | 485 | 28 | 1,106 |
| 25-29 | 1,650 | 0 | 170 | 486 | 69 | 2,375 |
| 30-34 | 2,092 | 0 | 382 | 315 | 94 | 2,883 |
| 35-39 | 2,375 | 4 | 593 | 169 | 97 | 3,238 |
| 40-44 | 2,213 | 16 | 773 | 216 | 99 | 3,317 |
| 45-49 | 1,534 | 152 | 743 | 159 | 100 | 2,688 |
| 50-54 | 956 | 1,265 | 503 | 150 | 82 | 2,956 |
| 55-59 | 657 | 2,986 | 359 | 119 | 88 | 4,209 |
| 60-64 | 305 | 3,430 | 168 | 153 | 58 | 4,114 |
| 65 OR MORE | 202 | 3,226 | 53 | 355 | 70 | 3,906 |
| Total | 12,551 | 11,080 | 3,774 | 2,622 | 786 | 30,813 |
Sources: OPM, ORA
According to Table 3, the largest share of retirees during this period was aged 50 or more, and the largest group non-retirees was aged 25-44. The third-largest reason for separations during this period was “Reduction in Force” notices. This largely impacted employees aged 35-49, with a younger group aged 20-34 mainly affected by “Terminations.” Notably, the “Quits” may not be entirely composed of individuals who quit but may include some who accepted the Deferred Resignation Program offer but did not have enough years of service or age to qualify for federal retirement.
Impact of Federal Separation in the District
Overall, the loss of a large share of highly educated, relatively younger members of the federal workforce in the District between January and December 2025 was significant. The majority of those who separated from federal employment in the District were under 50 years old, and 85.3 percent of the total federal separations reported having a bachelor’s degree or higher. The total federal separations during this period totaled 30,813, resulting in a loss of approximately $4.567 billion in annualized pay. Since the federal government also hired within the District over the same period, the net effect was a loss of 22,356 jobs and $3.656 billion in annualized pay.
What is this Data?
The data used in this analysis are publicly available on the Office of Personnel Management's website, by month. ORA downloaded the separate monthly files and tabulated them for the District to analyze the federal employment changes. The data provides information on new federal hiring, separations, and current workforce totals by duty station and agency.