Dot Invited More People To Resign. Now It’s Scrambling To Keep Some Of Them.

So many workers at the Transportation Department have accepted a second “fork in the road” deferred resignation offer that some are being asked to reconsider, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.

About 4,700 people throughout the department have put in for the second resignation offer, according to three people familiar with the figures, granted anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. That’s about 9 percent of the agency’s total workforce of more than 55,000, the bulk of which — about 45,000 — work at the Federal Aviation Administration.

“It’s a shit show, honestly. I feel for HR because this is a mess they didn’t create,” a DOT employee, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak with the media, said of the scramble.

DOT said Wednesday that the figure is closer to just under 4,000. A spokesperson said the offer “is just one part of our effort to make DOT more efficient and accountable to the taxpayer,” and noted that people who perform safety critical work are exempt. “Our teams are layered with redundancies to ensure efficiency initiatives will not compromise safety,” the spokesperson added.

It wasn’t clear how many of the employees who elected to quit work at the FAA, which has been grappling with the aftermath of a January plane crash that killed 67 people when a passenger jet and a military helicopter collided in Washington.

Anyone leaving after the second round of offers would be on top of the 2,000-odd employees who either took the first offer or were let go in mass-firings of probationary workers since President Donald Trump took office. (More than 700 of those who were dismissed in February were reinstated in response to a federal judge’s order.)

Of course, the 4,700-person figure is subject to change, considering the agency has discretion to exempt certain employees or classes of workers, especially if they perform a safety function. How those numbers break down by subagency remains unclear.

On a call with staff Tuesday, Matthew Welbes, the executive director at the Federal Transit Administration, said that he isn’t expecting an impending mass layoff at his agency because of the high number of employees who accepted the offer, a person who was on the call, granted anonymity to discuss its contents, told POLITICO.

On April 1, DOT offered employees a second chance to participate in a program the administration has called “deferred resignation.” The program offers employees pay and benefits through September in exchange for voluntarily leaving the agency. An initial round that began in early February was taken by over 1,100 workers, including around 700 at the FAA.

The second offer was open through April 7. Employees focused on safety are exempt from participating in the program, such as air traffic controllers.

It’s part of a broader effort by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting team to slash the federal workforce. DOT had until mid-March to submit an initial plan for a mass layoff, known as a reduction in force, to the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget.

The department so far has not started any RIF, as anticipated.