March 8 (UPI) — Federal workers with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are being offered buyouts from the agency as part of President Donald Trump‘s efforts to reduce the government workforce.
The HHS buyouts are termed Voluntary Incentive Payments and range up to $25,000, Bloomberg reported, citing an internal email to employees from the Office of Personnel Management.
Employees can accept the offer during a window that opens Monday and closes Friday.
The offer is being extended to a “broad population of HHS employees,” according to Bloomberg.
Employees must be at least 50 years old with a minimum of 20 years service time to be eligible, according to the report. Employees of any age with 25 years or more service time are also eligible.
In February, the Office of Personnel Management offered buyouts of eight months of pay and benefits. Roughly 3.3% of the federal workforce, 75,000 employees, had taken the deal.
Trump is making a major push to shrink the number of federal employees. The Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, headed by Elon Musk, has been tasked with eliminating what the Trump administration views as excess.
In late February, federal employees began receiving weekly emails instructing them to list their accomplishments in the past week. Those emails come from the same Office of Personnel Management as the HHS buyout offers.
Federal agencies have fired thousands of employees since Trump was inaugurated in January.
Earlier this week, 120 employees previously put on probation from their jobs with the Department of Labor were reinstated, Bloomberg Law reported.
“It’s our understanding that this decision affects about 120 employees, most of whom had been placed on administrative leave,” American Federation of Government Employees spokesman Tim Kauffman told Bloomberg in an interview.
This week, Trump also publicly told Musk to use a “scalpel” rather than “hatchet” when it comes to future federal cuts.
On Friday, attorneys general from Washington, D.C. and 19 states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to reinstate federal employees that were fired or placed on probation.
A group of 20 attorneys general filed suit against the Trump administration over its firing of federal workers.
Attorneys general sought a court order Thursday that would reinstate terminated probationary employees, who were either