(Reuters) – The U.S. government added 9,000 workers in January, a gain economists do not expect to see repeated in the months ahead as President Donald Trump looks to cull the ranks of the federal workforce.
Trump came back to the presidency last month pledging to reduce the size of the federal government, and appointed Elon Musk to lead the effort at the helm of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
In Trump’s first few weeks he has moved to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, affecting potentially several thousand jobs. He also offered a buyout to the federal workforce, with reportedly 60,000 workers accepting, although a federal judge has temporarily blocked the move.
The gains in federal hiring last month were led by the U.S. Postal Service, which added 5,700 workers, the Department of Labor reported on Friday. Excluding those, the government added 3,700 positions. On average U.S. government employment has grown by about 4,000 jobs a month over the past year.
“The increase in federal employment will probably shift to a decline for a while,” Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, said.
The figures in January were collected during the monthly BLS survey of employers, conducted during the week before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. They may be revised in coming reports as more data on federal employment levels arrives.
(Reporting By Dan Burns; Editing by Nia Williams)
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