FILE-Protesters rally outside the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building headquarters of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on February 05, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Trump administration is asking hundreds of federal employees who were laid off by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to return to work.
According to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press, the General Services Administration is giving workers until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement.
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Workers who accept the terms are required to report for duty on Oct. 6 after what is roughly a seven-month paid vacation.
The AP reported that the GSA’s return to work request is like rehiring efforts in several federal agencies targeted by DOGE.
In August, the IRS told the AP it would allow some workers who accepted a resignation offer to stay on the job. Also, the Department of Labor has also brought back some workers who accepted buyouts, while the National Park Service reinstated several laid off employees.
Why did DOGE lay off federal workers?
The backstory:
In February 2025, the Trump administration offered buyouts to federal employees to quickly lower the government workforce. The buyouts were for all full-time federal employees except for military personnel, employees of the U.S. Postal Service and those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security.
This buyout was led by Elon Musk, one of President Donald Trump’s advisers, who organized a financial incentive for workers to leave their government jobs by offering several months of pay in exchange for their resignation.
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The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) identified the General Services Administration, which had 12,000 employees at the start of the Trump administration, as a target of its mission to lower fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government.
According to the Associated Press, a small group of Musk's trusted aides inside GSA’s headquarters pursued plans to cancel almost half of the 7,500 leases in the federal portfolio. DOGE also wanted the GSA to sell hundreds of federally owned buildings with the goal of generating billions in savings.
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The GSA submitted over 800 lease cancellation notices to landlords, in many cases without notifying the government tenants. The AP reported that the GSA also published a list of government buildings that were targeted for sale.
What is DOGE?
Dig deeper:
DOGE is President Donald Trump's special commission tasked with slashing federal spending. Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy originally headed DOGE.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by previous LIVENOW from FOX reporting and the Associated Press, which obtained a memo about the government workers being rehired. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.