Federal job losses: Hard decisions and recession fears ripple out from DC

Naomi Anderson was on leave looking after her baby when she was told that her job with the US Department of Agriculture, helping farmers in developing countries, was being cut.

- Heather Stewart

Naomi Anderson was on leave looking after her baby when she was told that her job with the US Department of Agriculture, helping farmers in developing countries, was being cut. A former volunteer with the Peace Corps, which sends young Americans overseas to projects in emerging economies, she had expected to spend her whole career in international development.

"I had taken this job two years ago expecting to stay here for at least 10 years, and you know, we had started to make a community and build up our life here. In January, we had started looking at buying a home," Anderson said.

Now she is having to consider giving up the apartment in the Washington DC commuter town of Reston, Virginia, which she shares with her husband and their four-month-old baby and almost two-year-old toddler.

"Financially, it's a little bit precarious, and honestly we're not sure what we're going to do," said Anderson, who is also an activist with the local branch of the AFSCME union and dabbles in selling political merchandise.

"We're thinking about moving back to Ohio, where I'm from, where my family is. You know, it's a lot cheaper there."

Tough life-decisions like these have been forced on hundreds of thousands of former federal employees in the past couple of months, as the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), headed by Donald Trump's favourite tech billionaire, Elon Musk, has slashed jobs in a cost-cutting spree.

Data from the latest monthly Challenger jobs report suggests Doge has been responsible for 281,452 job cuts so far - almost eight times the number of workers the government cut in the entire year to April 2024.