OPM Cut 35% of Its Own Staff, Then Stopped Answering GAO
Summary
The Office of Personnel Management -- the federal government's own HR department -- cut its own headcount by 35% (1,052 people) between December 2024 and March 2026, eliminated 10 offices, and lost a workforce where 57% of departing staff had more than a decade of federal experience. When GAO went looking for the rationale behind [OPM's own restructuring](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108916), OPM declined to hand over documents, meet with investigators, or answer written questions -- the agency that runs merit-based hiring for the rest of the government would not explain its own personnel decisions to its own overseer.
Who left, and how
Of the employees who separated from in that 15-month window, 59 percent left through a deferred resignation program and 10 percent through a reduction in force⧉, according to 's analysis of 's own Federal Workforce Data. The cuts fell hardest on 's oldest employees -- the number of staff aged 60 or older fell by 49 percent -- while 41 percent of 's staff under 30 also separated, 60 percent of them still within their probationary period (against 23 percent probationary-period separations agency-wide). Zoom out further and the reversal is sharper still: 's headcount had grown by 450 people (17 percent) from 2019 to 2024, but by March 2026 it stood 602 people (23 percent) below where it was in 2019.
View data as table
| Less than 2 years | 15% | 185 employees |
|---|---|---|
| 2-5 years | 16% | 199 employees |
| 6-10 years | 12% | 149 employees |
| 11-20 years | 22% | 271 employees |
| 21-30 years | 17% | 205 employees |
| 31 or more years | 18% | 226 employees |
Which offices shrank, and which grew
's own comparison of 's Congressional Budget Justifications from FY2024 to FY2026 tracked seven offices individually. Five lost staff: Human Resources Solutions fell 36 percent, the Office of the Chief Information Officer fell 49 percent⧉ -- the largest cut in the table -- and Retirement Services, Workforce Policy and Innovation, and Merit System Accountability & Compliance all shrank as well, even as Retirement Services absorbed what called a historic surge of 2025 retirement filings. Only two offices grew: the Office of the General Counsel (up 21 percent) and the Office of the Director (up 79 percent). OPM's own FY2027 budget filing⧉ independently names five closed offices, including the Office of Procurement Operations cites by name -- 's own later paperwork confirming the closures 's report describes.
View data as table
| Human Resources Solutions: FTEs cut 36% | 36% | -189 FTE |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Information Officer: FTEs cut 49% | 49% | -167 FTE, the largest percentage cut in the table |
| Retirement Services: FTEs cut 16% | 16% | -165 FTE |
| Workforce Policy and Innovation: FTEs cut 45% | 45% | -102 FTE |
| Merit System Accountability & Compliance: FTEs cut 41% | 41% | -38 FTE |
| Office of the General Counsel: FTEs grew 21% | 21% | +8 FTE |
| Office of the Director: FTEs grew 79% | 79% | +23 FTE, the largest percentage change of any office in the table |
GAO asked. OPM didn't answer.
Federal skills gaps have sat on GAO's High-Risk List since 2001⧉, and recommended in February 2023 that build an action plan to address its own; has not implemented that recommendation, telling it is instead prioritizing workforce changes under its FY2026-2030 strategic plan. In November 2025, 's own Inspector General separately flagged the workforce reduction as a top management challenge for 2026, citing immediate gaps in operational capacity. Against that backdrop, asked directly for documentation on the office closures, the rationale behind them, and its strategic workforce planning process. Other than comments on a preliminary draft, did not provide the requested records, agree to meet with , or respond to written questions -- so 's own report says it cannot give a complete account of what changed, why, what it cost, or what it did to 's ability to do its job.
- cut 35 percent of its own staff (1,052 people) between December 2024 and March 2026 and eliminated 10 offices, per GAO's own analysis⧉ of 's workforce data -- reversing a 2019-2024 headcount gain and leaving 23 percent below its 2019 staffing level.
- 57 percent of departing employees had 11 or more years of federal service, including 18 percent with 31 or more years -- calls this a significant loss of institutional knowledge, on top of skills gaps it has flagged government-wide since 2001.
- Five of the seven offices tracked individually lost staff; two grew. The Chief Information Officer's office lost the largest share (49 percent), while the Office of the Director grew the most (79 percent).
- declined to explain any of it. requested documentation, a meeting, and written answers about the closures' rationale and costs; provided none of the three, so 's own report states it cannot give complete information on what changed or why.
- 's own Inspector General had already warned about this in November 2025, calling the workforce reduction a top management challenge for 2026 and citing immediate operational-capacity gaps -- a warning from inside the agency that preceded 's outside review.
Figures are drawn from GAO-26-108916⧉, GAOverview: Recent Federal Workforce Changes at , published and publicly released July 20, 2026, read via a sealed capture of gao.gov after a direct fetch was blocked by an access-control page; text was verified as genuine report content (Fast Facts, Highlights, Tables 1-2), not a navigation shell. The 10-eliminated-offices figure is independently corroborated by OPM's own FY2027 Congressional Budget Justification⧉, which separately names five closed offices including the Office of Procurement Operations. A blind adversarial verifier, working from the primary documents alone with no access to this draft, independently checked every itemized fact; see verification.json.
The 57 percent institutional-knowledge figure, the 1,235-person gross-separations total, and the roughly 183-person implied-hires figure are this outlet's own arithmetic on 's own published length-of-service table and headcount figures (methods and caveats in analysis.json); none of the three appear as a single pre-computed number in the source report itself, though the 57 percent figure matches 's own separately stated headline number exactly.
Sources(2) ▾
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAOverview: Recent Federal Workforce Changes at OPM (GAO-26-108916) (2026-07-20) — 's own July 20, 2026 workforce review is the sole source for 's 35 percent/1,052-person headcount decline, the 10 eliminated offices, the 57 percent institutional-knowledge-loss figure, the deferred-resignation/RIF separation split, the age-60+ and under-30 breakdowns, the office-level change table, the length-of-service table, 's non-cooperation with 's document and interview requests, and the 's November 2025 top-management-challenge finding. gao.gov · original document
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management, FY 2027 Congressional Budget Justification (U.S. Office of Personnel Management) (2026-04-01) — 's own FY2027 budget submission independently names five of its own closed offices, including the Office of Procurement Operations that 's report cites by name -- corroborating, from 's own later budget document, that the office closures -26-108916 reports were real and not a analytical artifact. opm.gov · original document
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The Office of Personnel Management is the federal government's own human-resources department -- the agency that writes hiring, pay, and benefits rules for every other federal office. Between December 31, 2024 and March 31, 2026, OPM cut its own headcount by 35 percent, a loss of 1,052 people⧉, and eliminated 10 of its own offices. Then, when the Government Accountability Office asked to explain the rationale, the expected costs, and the effects on its own mission, declined to provide the requested documents, meet with investigators, or answer written questions -- leaving 's own account of the changes incomplete by the account of the report itself.