Initial layoffs at Transportation Department expected in late May

Updated at 4:15 p.m. ET May 3

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced at a town hall on Friday that the department will perform reductions in force at the end of May as part of the Trump’s administration goal to reduce the federal employee headcount. 

The number of employees who will be let go depends on how many staffers participate in the second round of the deferred resignation program through which government workers can receive pay and benefits until Sept. 30 if they agree to resign. Duffy also didn’t rule out that there could be future workforce reductions. 

“The DRP will end. We'll look at the numbers. We're going to do the RIF. We're going to know at the end of May what that looks like,” he said, according to audio obtained by Government Executive. “I don't have plans after that. I can't say we're all done. I don't have plans to do anything else but what we're doing right now, and I have faith that we can do more with less.”

DOT’s DRP was open for a week at the beginning of April, but employees who are 40 and older have until May 22 to decide whether to take the offer. The Office of Personnel Management had recommended that agencies give such workers 45 days to consider if they wanted to accept in order to comply with anti-age discrimination law. 

Most of the federal workforce was eligible for the first DRP round, which ended in early February. About 1,100 DOT employees opted into that first round, said Keith Washington, DOT’s deputy assistant secretary for administration, at Friday’s town hall. Several agencies have sponsored a second round, including DOT. Washington said that approximately 2,500 employees have signed resignation contracts and are beginning their leave. 

That number could rise. A DOT spokesperson told Government Executive that approximately 4,000 employees applied for the second DRP round. 

DOT had a little more than 57,000 employees in fiscal 2024. 

Duffy said that employees won’t find out if they were laid off as they try to access their offices, which occurred at the Health and Human Services Department. 

“I would find that to be disrespectful to have you find out that you're going to be RIF’d if your key [or] if your [Personal Identity Verification] card didn't work,” he said. “So, no, that's not going to happen.” 

The secretary also said there are currently no plans to relocate DOT outside of the Washington, D.C., area, which the Agriculture Department is intending to do with much of its workforce. 

Unlike RIFs at the U.S. Agency for International Development and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which have effectively eliminated the agencies, Duffy said DOT is the president’s “favorite department.”

“If we have huge holes in this department [post DRP] where we can't do our work, we're going to figure out ways to bring people in or move people around,” he said. “I'm going to make sure that we have the resources and the people available to accomplish the mission because the president wants us to accomplish this mission.”

Despite the cost cutting associated with RIFs, Duffy wants investments in air safety, an issue that has gotten increased attention since the January plane collision in Washington, D.C. 

At Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, he said that he would ask Congress to fund a new air traffic control system. And on Thursday DOT announced that controllers who are eligible to retire but under the mandatory retirement age of 56 will receive a 20% bonus of their basic pay each year that they continue to work. 

Senior correspondent Eric Katz contributed to this report

This story has been updated with information from the Transportation Department.