Maryland lost another 2,500 federal jobs in August, marking the second consecutive month the state has led the nation in federal job losses, according to data released Friday by the Maryland Department of Labor. The August figures bring the total number of federal jobs lost in Maryland to 15,100 since January, when President Donald Trump took office and began his campaign to reduce the federal workforce. That year-to-date total is also the highest in the United States, the state reported.
Maryland's economy is heavily dependent on the federal workforce. An estimated 269,000 Maryland residents were employed by the federal government in 2023, according to a report by the state's Labor Department, and there were 158,475 federal jobs located in the state that year. The August job numbers count jobs located in the state, meaning Maryland has lost nearly 10% of its federal jobs since the start of 2025.
Jake Pannell, a national business representative for the National Federation of Federal Employees, said many former workers have had to leave the region, and he worries about the lack of private-sector jobs for the variety of skills federal workers possess. "Many of these people have decades of experience. They're overqualified for other positions," Pannell said, adding that some federal workers will either have to accept "huge" pay cuts or undergo job re-entry programs that train them for jobs "they're already greatly experienced at."
The federal job losses are expected to continue when September numbers are released. As part of the push to slash the federal workforce, employees were offered a deferred resignation option on Jan. 28 that allowed them to receive pay and benefits until Sept. 30. "Workforce-wide" declines are expected to appear in job losses at the end of September and through the end of the year as those positions are removed from the books, according to a statement from the Office of Personnel Management.
Lawmakers this year created an emergency short-term loan program for laid-off federal workers, and the Maryland Department of Labor has set up a page for former federal employees seeking work, including a list of job recruiting events and career workshops. "The states are doing everything they have the resources to do," Pannell said. However, many resources put forward by the state, such as unemployment insurance, are federally funded and at risk of being cut, he added. "Those resources aren't going to be any better than they were before," Pannell said.
The federal job cuts were the driving factor behind an overall loss of 3,200 jobs in Maryland for August, which pushed the state's unemployment rate from 3.4% in July to 3.6% in August. Still, Maryland's unemployment rate remained below the national average of 4.3% for the month. The federal job cuts began on Trump's first day back in office, when OPM issued a memo directing agencies to identify workers still in their probationary period, making it easier to fire them. They continued in February, when Trump ordered reductions in force and agency reorganizations in line with recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE Service).
Since taking office, Trump has also unilaterally ended collective bargaining agreements with some federal labor unions and instituted a hiring freeze extended through mid-October, among other actions. All told, about 97,000 federal jobs have been lost nationwide since January 2025, according to a Sept. 5 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "If you get rid of all these federal employees within the state of Maryland or in the D.C. metro area, where are they going to go? What are they going to do? Where are the jobs they could take?" Pannell asked.
