Feds Rehire Hundreds Laid Off by DOGE

Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk's cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work. The General Services Administration has given the employees—who managed government workspaces—until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by the AP. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs—passed along to taxpayers—to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or allowed to expire.

"Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed," says Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. "They didn't have the people they needed to carry out basic functions." Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, says GSA has been in a "triage mode" for months. He says the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast.

• GSA was established in the 1940s to centralize the acquisition and management of thousands of federal workplaces. Its return to work request mirrors rehiring efforts at in several agencies targeted by DOGE. Last month, the IRS said it would allow some employees who took a resignation offer to remain on the job. The Labor Department has also brought back some employees who took buyouts, while the National Park Service earlier reinstated a number of purged employees.

• Critical to the work of such agencies is the GSA, which manages many of the buildings. Starting in March, thousands of GSA employees left the agency as part of programs that encouraged them to resign or take early retirement. Hundreds of others—those subject to the recall notice—were dismissed as part of an aggressive push to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Though those employees did not show up for work, some continue to get paid.
• DOGE also wanted GSA to sell hundreds of federally owned buildings with the goal of generating billions in savings. GSA started by sending more than 800 lease cancellation notices to landlords, in many cases without informing the government tenants. The agency also published a list of hundreds of government buildings that were targeted for sale.
• Pushback to GSA's dumping of its portfolio was swift, and both initiatives have been dialed back. More than 480 leases slated for termination by DOGE have since been spared. As a result of the internal turmoil, 131 leases expired without the government actually vacating the properties, a federal official tells the AP. The situation has exposed agencies including the IRS and FDA to steep fees because property owners have not been able to rent out those spaces to other tenants.
• DOGE's "Wall of Receipts," which once boasted that the lease cancellations alone would save nearly $460 million, has since reduced that estimate to $140 million by the end of July, according to Becker, the former GSA real estate official.