Pentagon to cut up to 60,000 civilian jobs, one-third of which resigned voluntarily

The U.S. Department of Defense will eliminate between 50,000 and 60,000 civilian jobs, but at least a third of these workers who accepted a voluntary resignation plan will leave in the coming months.

This was confirmed Tuesday by a senior U.S. Pentagon official to reporters.

To achieve the goal of a 5% to 8% cut in a civilian workforce of more than 900,000, the worker said, the department intends to suspend about 6,000 jobs a month. It also won't replace workers who routinely leave.

One of the Pentagon's biggest concerns is that military personnel could be selected to fill civilian positions. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity with AP said the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, wants to ensure that the cuts do not harm military readiness.

These actions follow a broader effort by the Department of Government Efficiency, which is supervised by Trump's billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, to trim the federal workforce and dismantle government agencies.

The official further disclosed that "some" military veterans will be among the released civilians, but did not estimate how many. He agreed that there could be thousands.

The Pentagon is using three methods to carry out the aforementioned personnel cuts: voluntary resignations, layoffs of probationary workers and job cuts due to routine employee attrition.

It was specified that military and department officials are evaluating personnel on a "case-by-case basis" to ensure that the cuts do not affect important national security positions.

On the other hand, plans to cut probationary personnel - which the Pentagon said targeted some 5,400 of the department's approximately 54,000 - are already on hold due to court challenges.