More than 60K defense civilians have left under Hegseth—but officials are mum on the effects

Nine months into the second Trump administration, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s effort to shrink and reshape the Pentagon’s civilian workforce has netted a reduction of more than 60,000 employees, or about 7.6 percent, comfortably reaching the 5- to 8-percent goal he set in March. But while the Pentagon provided those numbers to Defense One, they provided few other details, leaving it hard to judge how the effort to cut payroll and redirect resources is going. Multiple offici