The U.S. Space Force will be seeing a 14% cut in its workforce as part of the Trump administration's goal to reduce civilian employees in the Defense Department.
"The civilian workforce by the end of '25 was supposed to be almost 1,000 [employees] larger than it's going to end up being," Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations at the Space Force said in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Total reductions have been almost 14% of our civilian workforce inside the Space Force."
He added, "We've certainly seen people leaving. We were in a period of managed growth, and so, there was a deficit when we were trying to get to a larger civilian workforce, and we were asked to stop and then offer some to resign early."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the Pentagon's goal is to reduce the civilian workforce by 5% to 8%.
"We understand the desire to reduce the civilian workforce, [it is] just having a little bit of an outsized impact on the Space Force," Saltzman said. "We rely heavily on our civilian workforce," Saltzman said. "They bring expertise that we don't have in active duty. They bring corporate continuity across all of our processes and procedures."
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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