Trump admin rehires hundreds of federal employees | Political News

Hundreds of federal employees who had been laid off following Elon Musk‘s cost-cutting measures through DOGE are being requested to go back to work.

The employees got until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement by the General Services Administration, which manages authorities workspaces.

Anyone who accepts must report for work on Oct. 6 after what is being described as a seven-month paid trip, during which the GSA has racked up high prices to keep in properties whose leases had been slated for termination or had been allowed to expire, reported The Associated Press.

“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”

Becker said the GSA has been in a “triage mode” for a number of months, including that the sudden change from the major downsizing reveals how Musk and his Department of Government Efficient had executed an excessive amount of, too soon.

“GSA’s leadership team has reviewed workforce actions and is making adjustments in the best interest of the customer agencies we serve and the American taxpayers,” said the company in a assertion.

In the midst of the chaos, Democrats have criticized the Trump administration‘s indiscriminate efforts to cut prices and jobs. Arizona Representative Greg Stanton, who is on the subcommittee overseeing the GSA, told the outlet that there’s no evidence that the layoffs “delivered any savings.”

“It’s created costly confusion while undermining the very services taxpayers depend on,” he explained.

At the start of the Trump administration, the GSA had about 12,000 employees until DOGE made the company the goal ot its marketing campaign to scale back fraud, waste, and abuse within the federal authorities.

A small group of Musk’s DOGE aides stayed at the GSA headquarters, some of them sleeping on cots on the sixth flooring, pursuing plans to cancel practically half of the 7,500 leases in the federal portfolio.

DOGE also needed GSA to promote hundreds of federally owned properties to generate billions in financial savings. The company responded with more than 800 lease cancellation notices to landlord — in many of these instances, the goverment tenants weren’t informed.

Cuts Produced Little Savings

The backlash from GSA dumping its portfolio was fast and has since been dialed back, along with DOGE’s job cuts. More than 480 leases that had been set to be terminated have been spared.

Those leases had been for workplaces throughout the nation that are occupied by businesses such as the IRS, Social Security Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration.

DOGE had once bragged about its “Wall of Receipts,” claiming that the lease cancellations would save practically $460 million; however, that quantity had been decreased to about $140 million by the end of July, according to Becker.

In its huge job cuts, the GSA slashed its headquarters administration workers by 79%, portfolio managers by 65%, and services managers by 35%, a federal source told the outlet.

As a end result of the executive mess, 131 leases expired without the federal government truly vacating the buildings, the source said, exposing the businesses to huge charges since property homeowners have not been in a position to rent out the properties to new tenants.

The Government Accountability Office, an unbiased watchdog, is trying into the company’s management of its staff, lease terminations, and deliberate building disposal and is aiming to issue its findings in the approaching months, said David Marroni, a senior GAO official.