The Trump administration plans to cut as much as half of federal agencies' workforces, it was reported.
An internal White House memo obtained by The Washington Post showed federal officials are preparing for agencies to cut between 8% and 50% of their employees.
The cuts were compiled after 22 agencies submitted plans to President Donald Trump.
According to the memo, which was updated on Tuesday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will reduce half of its roughly 8,300-person staff, the IRS would cut 33% of its employees, and the Interior Department would cut nearly 25%.
Other departments' cuts included the Justice Department (8%), the National Science Foundation (28%), the Commerce Department (30%), and the Small Business Administration (43%), according to the Post.
Sources stressed to the outlet that planning remains fluid and that the final numbers could differ from what the memo says.
The federal bureaucracy currently relies on a 2.3-million-person workforce.
"It's no secret the Trump Administration is dedicated to downsizing the federal bureaucracy and cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. This document is a pre-deliberative draft and does not accurately reflect final reduction in force plans," White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in an email to the Post.
"When President Trump's Cabinet Secretaries are ready to announce reduction in force plans, they will make those announcements to their respective workforces at the appropriate time."
Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have been focused on streamlining government and reducing fraud, waste, and corruption in federal spending.
Reuters reported last week that White House officials were reviewing federal agencies' downsizing plans, a move expected to result in the firing of thousands of government workers within the coming weeks.
The president had given the agencies until March 13 to draw up plans for a second wave of layoffs as part of his rapid-fire effort to reshape and reduce the size of the federal government, which he has called bloated and inefficient.
In a Feb. 11 executive order, Trump instructed the Office of Management and Budget and DOGE to shrink the workforce.
While opponents have gone to the courts to try and stop many of Trump's orders, the reduction-in-force (RIF) process is more likely to survive legal challenges than the mass firings of probationary employees earlier this year.
"The RIF process is the one that is established in law and regulation about how to reduce workforces," said Robert Shea, a Republican who served in senior political roles at the White House budget office. Shea predicted that attempted cuts would draw additional litigation but added: "Because this is a well-established path, it's more likely to succeed than some of these other avenues."
Reuters contributed to this story.
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