Trump administration hires laid-off employees

Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in the Trump administration's cost-cutting offensive are now being asked to return to work.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has given government workspace management employees until the end of this week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.

Those who accept must report for duty on October 6, after a seven-month paid leave , during which the GSA, in some cases, racked up high costs — passed on to taxpayers — to maintain dozens of properties whose leases were scheduled to be canceled or had expired.

"Ultimately, the result was that the agency was fractured and understaffed," said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. "They didn't have the people they needed to perform basic functions," he stressed.

Becker, who represents landlords with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said the GSA has been in “triage” mode for months.

Although these employees did not report to work, they were supposed to be paid by the end of this month. GSA representatives did not respond to detailed questions about the return-to-work notice, which the agency issued on Friday. They also declined to discuss the agency's headcount, staffing decisions, or the potential cost overruns generated by reversing lease termination plans.

"The GSA leadership team has reviewed workforce actions and is making adjustments in the best interests of the agencies and customers we serve and the American taxpayer," an agency spokesperson said in an email.

Democrats attacked the Trump administration's indiscriminate approach to cutting costs and jobs. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona, the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees the GSA, told the AP that there is no evidence that the agency's cuts "brought any savings." "It created a costly mess while undermining the very services taxpayers depend on," he said.

The agency, which had about 12,000 employees at the start of the Trump administration, served as a key target of his campaign to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government.

A small group of trusted aides to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, embedded at GSA headquarters, sometimes sleeping on camp beds on the agency's sixth floor, carried out plans to abruptly cancel nearly half of the 7,500 contracts in the federal portfolio.

The DOGE also wanted the GSA to sell hundreds of federally owned buildings, aiming to generate billions of dollars in savings. The GSA began sending more than 800 lease termination notices to landlords, in many cases without informing the government tenants.

The agency also published a list of hundreds of government buildings targeted for sale. DOGE's massive job cuts produced few savings. The backlash to the GSA portfolio disposal was swift, and both initiatives were scaled back. More than 480 contracts slated for termination by DOGE have since been spared.

These leases were for offices across the country, occupied by agencies such as the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration.

DOGE once boasted that lease cancellations alone would save nearly $460 million. It has since reduced that estimate to $140 million by the end of July, according to Becker, the former GSA real estate official.

Meanwhile, GSA initiated massive job cuts and reduced headquarters staff by 79 percent, portfolio managers by 65 percent and facilities managers by 35 percent, according to a federal official briefed on the situation.

As a result of the internal turmoil, 131 leases expired without the government actually vacating the properties , the same source said.

The situation exposed agencies to high fees because property owners were unable to rent out their spaces to other tenants.