The Department of Government Efficiency has formally ended after an 18-month cost-cutting effort, with the Trump administration now moving to rebuild selected agencies through specialized hiring and more insourcing of federal work.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Department of Government Efficiency has reached the end of its formal mandate as the Trump administration moves from broad federal workforce reductions to a new phase of targeted hiring, agency restructuring and contractor insourcing.
DOGE officially sunset after an approximately 18-month effort that reduced the size of the federal workforce through buyouts, layoffs and a hiring freeze. The initiative drew sharp criticism from Democrats and other opponents, while administration officials argued the cuts were necessary to reduce waste and reshape government around President Donald Trump’s priorities.
According to a Just the News report, the end of DOGE’s formal role has coincided with a new hiring push across multiple agencies. Federal job postings have increased as departments seek to fill roles considered essential after earlier reductions created operational strains.
Democrats have long argued that a large federal workforce is needed to deliver public services. They criticized DOGE’s reductions as reckless and damaging, and some candidates have continued to campaign against the cuts even as the program ended.
Ace Parsi, a Democratic nominee running this year in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, criticized the program two weeks before its conclusion while speaking at Bureau of the Fiscal Service offices in the state.
“We are here today because what happened last February was unjust then, and it is unjust now,” Parsi said of the DOGE effort, according to the Associated Press.
Parsi said he does not oppose making government more efficient, but argued that DOGE did not accomplish that goal.
The Trump administration, however, has described the next stage as a workforce reset rather than a reversal. Agencies are now hiring again, with officials saying the goal is to build a leaner federal workforce aligned with administration priorities rather than restore every eliminated position.
The efficiency drive was initially led by Elon Musk. In February 2025, as Musk began leading DOGE, he defended the effort as “common sense” and “not draconian or radical.”
“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what the people are going to get,” Musk said at the White House. “That’s what democracy is all about.”
The reductions affected major agencies across the federal government. The Internal Revenue Service lost 27% of its workforce and is now fast-tracking 8,000 hires. The Department of Health and Human Services cut 10,000 positions and is now seeking 12,000 new employees. The Social Security Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Energy and NASA are also posting significant numbers of openings.
The National Endowment for the Humanities lost two-thirds of its staff, according to the report. Across the federal government, USAJobs listed more than 104,000 openings in early 2026, up from fewer than 69,000 late last year.
Officials say the new hiring is meant to address short-term capacity problems while avoiding a return to previous staffing patterns. Agencies are pursuing specialized recruitment efforts and seeking to bring certain contractor functions back inside government.
Programs such as Tech Force, War Force and NASA Force are being used to recruit talent in technology, defense, software and space-related roles. Administration officials say the approach is intended to place skilled workers in positions tied directly to mission needs.
The hiring push follows months of workforce reductions that the administration says exposed overstaffing and entrenched inefficiencies. While some operations were strained, officials have described the process as a necessary step toward right-sizing the federal government.
Trump defended the reductions in January while announcing that nearly 300,000 federal workers had been removed from the payroll during his first year back in office.
“We cut millions of people from the federal payroll,” Trump said in January.
“I don’t like doing that, but the good news is, I don’t feel badly because now they’re getting private sector jobs and they’re getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money. They’re getting factory jobs; they’re getting much better jobs and much higher pay,” Trump said.
During its run, DOGE used departure incentives through the Fork in the Road program and targeted reductions across agencies. The initiative eliminated an estimated $215 billion in spending through job cuts, contract cancellations, grant rescissions and asset sales.
The administration said some agencies tied to core priorities, including immigration enforcement and Secret Service operations, recorded net staffing gains even as other parts of the government were reduced. Officials framed that outcome as evidence that the goal was not uniform cuts, but a realignment of personnel and spending.
DOGE also moved aggressively against the U.S. Agency for International Development. The agency’s workforce was reduced from roughly 13,000 to fewer than 900 employees, 83% of its programs were canceled, and billions of dollars in contracts and grants were terminated. Remaining core functions were folded into the State Department.
Supporters of the effort say those reductions shifted federal spending away from programs they viewed as wasteful or misaligned with administration goals. Critics say the cuts weakened government capacity and disrupted services.
With DOGE now concluded, the administration is entering a new stage: rebuilding selected parts of the federal workforce while keeping agencies below pre-DOGE staffing levels. Officials have described the effort as “reshaping” government operations through targeted hiring rather than returning to prior headcounts.
Original article
Comments