Shutdown

Washington Post - A historic wave of retirements and other departures has swept through the federal workforce in recent months, putting enormous strain on agencies as they cope with a new government shutdown and administration layoffs.

This mass exodus — unprecedented in its scale — includes 154,000 federal employees who accepted buyout offers and were largely removed from the payroll as of the end of last month. Some of those are among nearly 105,000 employees who took regular retirement during the fiscal year that ended in September, an 18 percent surge from the previous year.

Tens of thousands of the cases are still awaiting processing, creating a crisis for already understaffed human resources offices across the government and the Office of Personnel Management.

With a significantly reduced workforce of its own, OPM has a growing backlog and worsening wait times, raising alarms about the government’s ability to smoothly handle this unprecedented personnel shift, according to documents and interviews with HR representatives and departed federal workers.