After DOGE-era cuts, GSA resumes hiring, scrutinizes in-office attendance for employees

The General Services Administration, a former hub for the Department of Government Efficiency, is looking to hire hundreds of employees after facing deep staffing cuts last year.

GSA’s top leader is also taking on a second job as the acting head of the National Archives and Records Administration. GSA provides real estate, contracting and IT support for other federal agencies.

Meanwhile, the agency is asking employees to provide daily status updates on their whereabouts, in a push to meet governmentwide occupancy benchmarks for office buildings and to determine if employees are following return-to-office requirements. GSA employees told Federal News Network that the agency tried to automate the collection of the occupancy data, but the automated method didn’t meet expectations.

The Public Buildings Service, which maintains a portfolio of more than 8,300 owned and leased federal buildings, is back in hiring mode, after widespread layoffs last year.

In a March 30 email obtained by Federal News Network, PBS Chief of Staff Donna Dix told staff that the agency is looking to hire about 400 employees over the next six months.

Dix wrote that the new hires, which GSA’s Strategic Hiring Committee approved, will “address our workforce needs and strengthen our teams.” Its initial hiring push will focus on its areas of greatest need — including facilities management, acquisition and project management. Current PBS employees also have an opportunity to move up the agency’s ranks.

“This strategic initiative will create a variety of opportunities, including merit promotions and leadership roles for career advancement, as well as external hiring to bring in critical resources. This comprehensive approach represents a significant investment in PBS’s future,” Dix wrote. “Whether you’re looking to grow within your current career path or welcome new colleagues who will help us achieve our goals, these upcoming positions will help foster growth and ensure we have the right talent in the right places.”

Dix said in a statement to Federal News Network that the Public Buildings Service “analyzed our workforce needs and created a strategic initiative that will provide a variety of opportunities, including merit promotions and leadership roles for career advancement, as well as external hiring to bring in critical resources.”

Early in the Trump administration, GSA was a hotbed of DOGE activity. At DOGE’s urging, GSA leaders sought to cut GSA’s real estate portfolio in half. 

At DOGE’s direction, GSA terminated hundreds of government leases. But it quickly walked back most of those terminations after administration officials discovered that closing down these offices would impact public-facing benefits and services. GSA eliminated about 30% of the 900 leases it originally targeted.

Last year, GSA disposed of 90 federal buildings, reducing its portfolio by 3 million square feet. Those sales generated $182 million in proceeds and avoided $415 million in repairs and operating expenses.

But GSA cut its workforce faster than it could shrink federal office space. Since October 2024, GSA has lost nearly 40% of its total workforce. PBS, which had entire regional offices eliminated as part of reductions in force last year, saw a commensurate reduction across its workforce, although former GSA leaders pushed for deeper cuts. At one point, GSA sought to eliminate 63% of the PBS workforce.

Last fall, Federal News Network first reported that PBS offered 400 laid-off employees the opportunity to come back to their jobs. WIRED first reported on GSA’s latest plans to hire another 400 PBS employees

GSA is also recruiting early-career employees to join its Federal Acquisition Service.  GSA told prospective hires in a recent webinar that it’s looking to find 54 candidates for the latest cohort of its Acquisition Talent Development program reserved for recent graduates.

Through its OneGov initiative, FAS has struck lower-cost deals for governmentwide services from several companies — including Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon AWS, Box, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Salesforce, Adobe, DocuSign, Uber and Elastic.  FAS has also taken over the contracting function of several other agencies. Since October 2024, FAS has lost about 30% of its workforce.

Despite GSA’s near-term hiring plans, the agency is looking to further reduce its overall headcount. According to its fiscal 2027 budget justification, GSA plans to get its headcount just under 9,000 full-time employees next year — a reduction of nearly 1,000 employees compared to current staffing levels.

GSA head tapped as acting National Archives leader

GSA Administrator Ed Forst is now serving as the acting head of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously served as acting national archivist, but stepped down from this role in February after exceeding limits set by the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. NARA hasn’t had a permanent leader so far under the Trump administration. Last month, President Donald Trump nominated Bradford Wilson to serve as NARA’s permanent leader.

Forst told GSA employees in an email that he will “dually serve” as the acting archivist and GSA administrator, and that he will “remain actively engaged in GSA’s work.”

“I want to be clear about what this means for GSA: our mission, priorities, and organizational structure remain unchanged,” Forst wrote. NARA employees received a similar notification last Friday.

Forst said in a statement to Federal News Network that he’s “committed to supporting NARA while President Trump’s nominee advances through the confirmation process.”

GSA asks employees to confirm in-office attendance

GSA is also bringing back a “daily check-in” requirement to ensure employees are showing up to the office full-time.

In an email last Friday, GSA Deputy Administrator Mike Lynch told staff that the daily check-in requirement will “strengthen our ability” to meet the Trump administration’s full-time office requirement for federal employees.

The daily check-in will go into effect on Monday. GSA is also using the data to check the occupancy levels of its buildings.  Last week, GSA published a governmentwide snapshot showing that none of the 9,700 federal buildings that it has data on — including its own — meet a 60% minimum occupancy requirement.

Lynch told employees in his email that “we also know that we are still not at the target utilization rate we want to see.”

“We’ve learned a lot about employee reporting and space optimization over the course of the last year, particularly when it comes to our own infrastructure and the reliance on technology and badge tools that don’t always fully capture accurate data,” Lynch wrote.

A GSA spokesperson said in a statement that the agency’s daily check-in “helps us meet our reporting requirements under the USE IT Act.”

“GSA is leading by example in working to fully utilize space. This will help us make smart decisions on how we reinvest in our workspaces and technology,” the spokesperson said.

GSA employees told Federal News Network that alternative methods of collecting building occupancy data didn’t meet expectations, and that the agency is returning to manual check-ins that had been on pause for a year. Employees must fill out a Google form each day, notifying agency leaders if they are working in their assigned building, working in a different federal building, on leave or teleworking. Employees must also provide a weekly snapshot of which days they’ve been approved to take leave or work from home.

Lynch wrote that GSA “leads the way in maximizing occupancy in our own offices,” and that data will “help us make smart decisions on how we reinvest in our workspaces and technology to support a more effective in-office work environment.”

Other agencies have also been tracking data to determine if employees are showing up to the office full-time. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration launched an audit of attendance records for IRS employees last summer. The recently published report found that IRS employees largely complied with the return-to-office mandate.

GSA employees said the agency stopped collecting daily check-in data in April 2025. According to an email shared with Federal News Network, the agency said these check-ins “provided valuable data on the use of our workspaces.”

“However, with GSA employees returning to the office, and with improved technology, we have better options to automate the measurement of our building occupancy,” the agency wrote in the April 2025 email.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29

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