As per the US Department of Agriculture briefing reviewed by Reuters with congressional staff, more than 15,000 USDA employees have accepted financial incentive packages by the Trump’s administration, to leave the agency. These 15,000 employees come to a total of 15% work force and it is as part of the major President Donald Trump’s administration initiative to shrink the federal government — which has been solely supported by billionaire Elon Musk.

Several months of paychecks in advance along with other benefits have been offered by Trump’s administration to every federal employee if they opt to resign their job. Looking back, the USDA’s Deferred Resignation Program has two different resignation periods— one is with 3,877 employees who resigned in February and the second is with 11,305 employees in April. Totaling to 15,182 voluntary resignations. The number of resignations can rise in the upcoming months as the employees over the age of 40 were given time to rethink their decision. It is also mentioned that some of the employees who have opted for resignation still haven’t signed the contacts.

Total number of USDA staff who have resigned under the Trump administration’s incentive program:

Table Source: USDA Readout

Since the start of Trump’s second term office in January, more than 260,000 people across the federal civilian workforce have been either fired or taken other options like early retirement, earmarked for termination or accepted buyouts. This represents 10 percent of the US federal civilian employment. In order to maintain the vital agency operations in the states, 53 areas—including wildland firefighters, veterinarians, and food safety inspectors—were released from the current hiring employment freeze.