The federal government is hiring and working to retain high-performing employees, after parting ways with more than 300,000 workers last year amid an effort to downsize the federal workforce.
Many of the workers who departed government jobs in 2025 quit, retired or took part in a reduction in force (RIF) program as the Trump administration tasked the Department of Government Efficiency with shrinking the federal government.
Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor spoke with WTOP’s partners at Federal News Network in an interview marking Public Service Recognition Week.
“I think this is an amazing time to be in public service,” Kupor told Federal News Network’s Terry Gerton.
Kupor said the first person hired under the U.S. Tech Force program, announced late last year, started work this week.
“The goal is to get about 1,000 engineers to come and do two-year stints into federal government. After that, if they love it and they want to stay, that’s great. If they decide they want to go back to the private sector, we’re also interested in helping them with that,” he said.
Another big goal, Kupor said, is to attract young people either from high school or college.
He said just 7% of the federal workforce is made up of people with five to seven years of work experience, while in the rest of the American workforce, that figure is 22%. On top of that, he said, is the fact that many current federal workers will become eligible for retirement in the next five to 15 years.
“Come to a place where you can work on, by far, the most exciting and complex problems in the world,” Kupor said of his advice to young, would-be federal employees.
Meanwhile, efforts are underway to better reward great workers, and more easily let underperforming ones go.
“I don’t think it’s an issue of being callous,” Kupor said. “I think it’s an issue of … ensuring that everybody in the organization who does show up and come to work every day can do the things knowing that all the team members are carrying their appropriate weight.”
Kupor said rules allowing only longtime employees to advance are being changed.
“If somebody does a fantastic job, even if they’ve only been doing that job for six months, we shouldn’t have a time-based restriction to our ability to promote and recognize that individual,” he said.
Amid ongoing efforts to do more with less, Kupor is looking to technology, but said artificial intelligence won’t completely replace federal workers.
“In OPM, we’re encouraging people to look at processes that they’ve been doing. What can they do to actually just help technology make them more efficient?” Kupor said.