A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirmed the number, which represents about 6.4 percent of the government workforce, in an email to The Epoch Times.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, starting shortly after President Donald Trump took office, the government told workers they could receive eight months of paid leave for not working if they left their jobs at the end of September.

"The federal workforce is expected to undergo significant near-term changes. As a result of these changes and uncertainty, or for other reasons, some employees may wish to depart the federal government on terms that provide them with sufficient time and economic security to plan for their future," workers were told in a Jan. 28 memo issued by OPM.

"The Deferred Resignation Program was a necessary step toward a smarter, leaner, more effective government," OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

He called the program "a practical, humane, and voluntary option to accelerate workforce transitions in a system that desperately needed movement," noting that fewer than 6,000 employees were removed from the 2.4 million workforce in 2024 for bad behavior or poor performance.

The program will ultimately save the government $20 billion or more annually, Kupor said.

The White House declined to comment.

Critics say the program was wasteful.

Senate Democrats said in a report on Thursday that they estimated it cost billions of dollars to implement the program, primarily to pay employees during the months of leave, part of $21.7 billion they said was wasted by efforts led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Businessman Elon Musk helmed DOGE initially, although he has since left the administration.

"At the very same time that the Trump administration is cutting health care, nutrition assistance, and emergency services in the name of 'efficiency' and 'savings,' they have enabled DOGE's reckless waste of at least $21.7 billion dollars," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, who released the report, said in a statement.