As Trump cuts workforce, federal unemployment claims in WA double
As the Trump administration pushes to dramatically downsize the federal government, new state data released this week show a big uptick in federal workers applying for unemployment benefits in Washington.
As of March 5, 952 federal employees have filed unemployment claims with Washington’s Employment Security Department this year — about double the number of claims from the same time period last year, which saw 472 claims.
Some of the claims were filed before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, but the majority came after he took office and authorized billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency to pursue a large-scale slashing of the federal workforce. Most of the layoffs so far have been targeted at recently hired or promoted federal workers in their probationary period.
The two federal departments with the most unemployment claims in Washington are the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with 190 federal workers filing claims this year, and the Department of the Interior, with 116 claims. Those two departments house the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, which have both seen significant cuts.
https://www.cascadepbs.org/briefs/2025/03/trump-cuts-workforce-federal-unemployment-claims-wa-double
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