Mortgage
DOGE buyout program backfired as agencies quietly rehired departing workers
By Real Estate Wire Staff, . Real Estate Wire.
The federal government's mass buyout program under the Department of Government Efficiency produced a paradox: agencies were hiring replacements for workers they were simultaneously paying to leave, according to [Scotsman Guide](https://www.scotsmanguide.com/news/federal-agencies-were-actively-rehiring-as-doge buyout-program-unfolded-last-year/), which obtained findings from the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that studies the federal workforce.
The Office of Personnel Management recorded 319,000 federal employee separations in 2025, more than double the 140,000 recorded in 2024 and well above the prior multidecade high of 167,000 in 2021. Of those, roughly 132,000 came through the deferred resignation program, representing 41% of all separations. About 10,000 resulted from mass firings.
The Partnership for Public Service tracked hiring from February 2025 through May 2026. For 20,557 people who took a buyout, it found a later hire at the same sort of agency, doing the same sort of job. In 8,642 cases, the replacement was brought on before the departing employee had officially separated. The report found that backfilled workers came in with considerably less experience than those who left.
"Agencies offloaded employees without considering how workforce reductions and the resulting loss of critical expertise aligned with agency goals," the Partnership for Public Service's findings stated. "In many cases, agencies were hiring for roles while placing or preparing to place departing employees in similar roles on administrative leave."
The numbers on specific occupations are striking. By June of this year, 201 nurses had been rehired against 266 who departed through the program. Some 421 criminal investigators replaced 613 who accepted buyouts. Consumer safety inspectors saw a one-for-one replacement: 155 left, 155 were rehired.
For the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the picture is different. HUD saw 2,062 deferred resignations through the program, a figure the Partnership for Public Service told Scotsman Guide excludes nonpermanent and senior executive branch staff. Total HUD staffing now stands at roughly 5,841, according to the Office of Personnel Management, down from more than 8,200 before the Trump administration's downsizing began. Through June, HUD had backfilled only 37 positions, 23 of which were traceable to deferred resignation departures.
For real estate professionals who work with HUD programs, including Federal Housing Administration lending, housing counseling grants and community development block grants, the staffing gap at HUD is a different problem than the one playing out elsewhere in the federal government. Where other agencies quietly rebuilt capacity, HUD has not. The practical effect is slower processing, thinner institutional knowledge and a department operating at roughly 70% of its pre-DOGE headcount with no clear timeline for recovery.
The broader federal picture raises a harder question: if agencies were rehiring almost immediately, what did the buyout program actually accomplish beyond the cost of the buyout payments themselves? The Partnership for Public Service's research does not calculate total program cost or net savings, and no official accounting of that figure has been published. What the data does show is that the government paid tens of thousands of workers to leave and then paid to replace them, often with less experienced staff.