Elon Musk listened to U.S. President Donald Trump and spoke on February 11, 2025 at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Donald Trump’s behavior and actions of thousands of federal government workers coincide with a surge in unemployed claims in Washington, D.C., which could get worse as efforts intensify.
Nearly 4,000 workers in New York City have begun filing unemployment insurance at the beginning of the new year, part of the surge that began when the new year began.
Overall, only 7,000 claims were filed in the six weeks of the new year, an increase of about 55% over the previous six weeks. The documents rose to 1,780 in the week ended February 8, an increase of 36% from the previous week, more than four times around the same period in 2024.
By comparison, Total claims In the United States, the four-week moving average of the initial claims was 216,000, with little change since the beginning of the year and actually most of the trends declined in the past few months.
As Trump and Elon Musk led the jump, the jump that DC advocates emerged Already ordered layoffs In government structure and established acquisition plans for early retirement.
“I hope it will get higher and I’ll definitely pay close attention to it,” said Raj Namboothiry, senior vice president of workforce solutions company Manpower North America.
While it is not clear that the share of the spike is directly related to federal government workers, Rise is associated with the White House ordering a layoff of trial workers and thousands of others as the administration seeks a broad labor reduction. In addition, there are approximately 75,000 employees Accepted the offer.
There is one in Washington, DC The highest unemployment rate According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country’s as of December 2024 surpassed it in Nevada only as of December 2024. However, metropolitan areas including Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia are only 2.7%. The national unemployment rate this month was 4.1%. Slide to 4% in January.
The wider labor picture remains solid
Namboothiry said reducing federal labor could raise some questions in the region, although that would not help the country’s photos he called “quite stable.”
“Yes, these numbers are certainly huge,” he said. “But because you’re spreading multiple (geographic locations), multiple skills, multiple fields, I think that plays a big role in impacting the overall market. ”
About 2.4 million federal workers, excluding post office workers, employ nearly one-fifths of them in the DC area, while others spread across the country. Except for the tax season, this number has remained the same since the late 1960s.
Still, Trump has made the federal jobs volume a vital part of his efforts to reduce the size of the administration.
However, displaced employees may not be unemployed for a long time. Namboothiry believes that their skills may be in high demand for certain economic areas.
“This provides an opportunity because some clients are looking for talent that might benefit,” he said. “There will be some conversations around the employer’s interests.”
Trump’s target cuts are spreading around the administration, and some institutions expect huge cuts.
Allison Shrivastava, an economist at the hiring lab at the time, said how fares for those displaced employees will depend on their area of work.
“It’s probably very few people don’t have jobs,” she said. “It definitely depends on the industry. So, for example, if you’re a department, unemployment claims are starting to surge in Washington, D.C., as Trump stepped up layoffs, what we’re seeing It’s your software development. Go back in.”
