US federal workers offered 8 months’ pay to quit their jobs

US President Donald Trump’s administration has announced it would begin subjecting all federal employees to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and ominously warned of future downsizing, while offering buyouts to those who opt to leave their jobs by next week – an unprecedented move to shrink the US government at breakneck speed.

A memo from the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency, was emailed to employees and says that those who leave their posts voluntarily will receive about eight months of salary. But they have to chose to do so by February 6.

Trump has built a political career around promising to disrupt Washington, and vowed that his second administration would go far further in shaking up traditional political norms than his first did. Still, the repercussions of so many government workers being invited to leave their jobs were difficult to calculate.

The federal government employs more than 3 million people, which makes it roughly the nation’s 15th largest workforce. The average tenure for a federal employee is nearly 12 years, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Centre of data from OPM.

Even a fraction of the workforce accepting buyouts could send shock waves through the economy and trigger widespread disruptions throughout society as a whole, triggering wide-ranging – and as yet unknowable – implications for the delivery, timeliness and effectiveness of federal services across the nation.