By Courtney Rozen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government has hired 50,000 employees since President Donald Trump took office, his top personnel official said, with the new staff largely in national security positions reflecting the administration’s policy focus.
The bulk of the new hires, reported first by Reuters, work at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Scott Kupor, the federal government’s human resources director, in an interview on Thursday night.
The staff changes are part of Trump’s campaign to recast the government while sharply cutting other federal jobs.
“It’s about reshaping the workforce to focus on the priorities that we think are most important,” Kupor said.
The administration brought on the new employees while freezing hiring and laying off workers in other parts of the government, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The administration expects to shed about 300,000 workers this year, Kupor said in August.
Trump appointed billionaire Elon Musk in January to launch a project to downsize the 2.4 million-strong federal civilian workforce. Musk, with Trump’s backing, said the federal workforce had become too big and too inefficient.
Trump’s administration dismissed employees charged with enforcing civil rights laws, collecting tax revenue and overseeing clean energy projects.
As part of the downsizing, about 154,000 employees accepted a buyout offer from the Trump administration. The buyouts impacted a wide range of government activities, including weather forecasting, food safety, health programs and space projects, according to former federal employees and unions who spoke to Reuters earlier this year.
(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Sonali Paul)
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