The federal government has hired tens of thousands of workers to backfill departments hollowed out last year by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE.

The federal government recorded 319,000 employee separations in 2025, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), a figure that far exceeds the 140,000 federal separations recorded in 2024 and the multidecade high of 167,000 separations in 2021.

About 10,000 separations resulted from mass firings. The most common pathway to separation was buyouts through the deferred resignation program spearheaded by DOGE. About 132,000 workers took advantage of those DRP offers, representing 41% of all separations.

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More than 2,000 buyouts occurred at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), as Scotsman Guide reported in April 2025. Those workers who accepted buyouts were placed on administrative leave and received paychecks until their effective departure dates, typically in September 2025.

Almost as soon as some buyouts were accepted, however, agencies began rehiring for the positions being vacated, according to recently published research by the Partnership for Public Service (PPS), a nonprofit organization that supports the federal workers.

“Agencies offloaded employees without considering how workforce reductions and the resulting loss of critical expertise aligned with agency goals,” read the findings, which present a bleak account of the government’s controversial downsizing efforts.

From February 2025 through May 2026, the period of the study, a total of 20,557 federal workers who accepted buyouts can now be matched to a new hire in the same agency category and occupational function, said PPS.

By June of this year, the government had hired back 201 nurses for positions that 266 had exited through DRP departures. Around 421 criminal investigators have been rehired for 613 who accepted buyouts. The report says 155 consumer safety inspectors accepted buyouts — and 155 have been rehired.

“In many cases, agencies were hiring for roles while placing or preparing to place departing employees in similar roles on administrative leave,” the report also noted, underscoring widespread inefficiencies in the downsizing efforts. Backfilled employees for DRP separations were hired with considerably lower experience levels, the report also found.

PPS says 8,642 employees were hired into roles before people who accepted deferred resignation offers officially separated. But not all federal departments and agencies hired back equally.

In a note to Scotsman Guide, PPS said HUD experienced 2,062 deferred resignations through last year’s program. That figure excludes any nonpermanent and senior executive branch staff.

Through June, however, HUD had only backfilled 37 positions, 23 of which were traceable to the DRP separations. HUD’s total staffing is currently about 5,841, according to OPM’s website, down from more than 8,200 prior to Trump administration downsizing.