Trump’s War Department Signals Next Military Phase With Bold New Shift
WASHINGTON — The Department of War reduced its civilian workforce by 10% last year, according to Pentagon data first obtained by The Daily Wire.
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The War Department’s civilian workforce decreased from 794,538 to 712,677 employees last year, The Daily Wire has learned, resulting in a net reduction of 81,861 employees, about 10.3%. The reduction in force is one way War Secretary Pete Hegseth, under the direction of President Donald Trump, has worked to strengthen the American military.
“The goal was straightforward: eliminate redundancies and ensure the Department operates as a well-oiled machine for our warfighters,” a War Department official shared. “Doing this is fully aligned with the president’s priorities.”
Hegseth announced in March 2025 that reductions in the workforce were part of his larger plan to rebuild the military in the spirit of the Trump administration. Hegseth emphasized that to minimize involuntary separations, he wanted to ease the path towards voluntary reductions.
“To deliver on my commitment to urgently rebuild our military, revive the warrior ethos and deliver maximum deterrence, we must aggressively refocus every available resource towards our core mission,” Hegseth said. “We will realign the size of our civilian workforce and strategically restructure it to supercharge our American warfighters consistent with my interim National Defense Strategy guidance.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
The War Department also hired 29,347 new employees and processed 109,441 departures in 2025. Of those departures, 14,606 were involuntary departures, and 94,835 were voluntary departures.
Under the 2025 Voluntary Deferred Resignation Program, civilian employees could submit a voluntary resignation with an effective date of September 30, 2025, while still receiving full salary and benefits. That program received 70,481 applications, resulting in 49,991 signed separation agreements.
Additionally, some 6,600 employees left the War Department using the Voluntary Retirement Authority program.
Hegseth has argued throughout his tenure as the Secretary of War that his objectives are “restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and reestablishing deterrence.” The most fundamental of those three, he said, is “restoring the warrior ethos.”
“Everything starts and ends with warriors in training and on the battlefield,” he told top military leaders at Quantico in April 2025. “We are leaving wokeness and weakness behind. And refocusing on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards and readiness.”
At the time, he noted that the War Department was “optimizing the civilian workforce, ensuring that we have the right employees in the right roles, at the right time to support our warfighters.”
“We’re doing this by voluntary means, to the greatest extent possible, through offerings like voluntary early retirement and separation initiatives,” he added, describing how the Pentagon was also ending telework and remote work culture, expecting employees to deliver results and respond to leadership needs.
“It’s a lot of change very quickly,” he said at the time. “Now as you may have noticed, the media likes to call it chaos. We call it overdue. How are the men and women responding to this — to this call? Well, I can tell you personally it’s going better than we could have ever expected. This department, and you know it, across the joint force is filled with patriots who want nothing more than to focus — be laser focused on serving their country. And that’s why retention is rebounding as well, big time, in real time.”
Originally Published at Daily Wire, Daily Signal, or The Blaze
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