(NewsNation) — Lawmakers were told this week that the Air Force and Space Force were planning on laying off thousands of workers, which could hinder recruitment and operations efforts, according to reports.
In a hearing on April 30, the deputy chief of space operations for human capital, Katharine Kelley, said, “I will tell you, because we rely heavily upon the Air Force for support, and that the preponderance of our Guardians, military and civilian, are operationally-focused, this is going to be a challenge for us.”
This comes two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Defense Department would reduce the agency’s civilian workforce by around 5% to 8% as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to reduce government spending.
12K Air Force civilian employees expected to be cut: Lt. Gen.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller reportedly expects to lose around 12,000 Air Force civilians, which is about 6% of the agency’s employees. Kelley believes that the Space Force will lose around 10% of civilians, which would be about 570 employees.
Space Force Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant reportedly said in March that a “considerable number” of civilian employees at the agency had taken advantage of President Donald Trump’s deferred resignation program.
A spokesperson with the Air Force told Air & Space Forces Magazine that, right now, it is too soon to know how these reductions will break down when it comes to job specialty or pay grade.
Until they know, that spokesperson said the Air Force “expects near-term civilian employee reductions to affect all mission areas to some degree, while limiting reductions that directly support warfighter readiness and lethality.”
It is said that probationary employees in the Air Force will only be “a very small portion of the overall reductions.” At Space Force, the cuts will reportedly be “proportionately distributed across the workforce based on both skill and tenure of civilian Guardians.”
Army expects to lose around 16K employees: Lt. Gen.
Miller reportedly said she hopes the resignations will be voluntary, but she did admit that these cuts could affect recruiting, since candidates could feel “uncertainty about… whether or not you’ll be able to maintain that position.”
Lt. Gen. Brian Eifler with the Army is allegedly expecting to lose around 16,000 employees, but is working on making sure this doesn’t impact the agency’s mission.
In the Marines, Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte said around 1,600 civilians took the voluntary resignation offer from the Trump administration. The Navy didn’t have an estimate, but told the Air & Space Forces Magazine about the importance of Navy civilians.
Navy Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman Jr. said, “I can’t do my job without my three-star civilian equivalent deputy… She did not take the DRP… but I am very concerned about my force development pipeline, how this will affect the schoolhouses and how it’ll affect our pay systems going forward, depending on how that shakes out.”
Air Force, Space Force complying with military-wide hiring freeze of civilians
The Air Force and the Space Force are reportedly complying with the military-wide hiring freeze on civilians. This is in place for everything except what is considered mission-critical roles.
This freeze has allegedly caused issues in a lot of areas, including child care. During the hearing at the end of April, Miller said many civilians who trained child care providers took the first round of Trump’s resignation offer. This, among other things, has allegedly caused the Air Force to move around its workers and resources.
This could mean that the Air Force will need to reduce the hours on some of its programs when summer hits, which is a popular time for youth activities and child care needs.