Reports: FDIC Plans Further Staff Reduction

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) reportedly plans to make a further staff reduction, eliminating another 750 positions in addition to the 500 it cut through voluntary reductions in February.

The regulator told employees Monday (April 21) in an email that it plans to reduce its staff by about 1,250 through early retirement, incentives for retirement and, if necessary, layoffs, Reuters reported Monday, citing a copy of the email.

That reduction would equal 20% of the roughly 6,900 employees for which the FDIC had authorization in 2025, according to the report.

The FDIC did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

A total of 500 FDIC employees already agreed to resign during an earlier, government-wide buyout offer, according to the Reuters report.

The FDIC said in its Monday email, per the report, that if it undertakes involuntary layoffs, they will begin after May 13, and that it may reject some employees’ offers to leave, depending on their role at the agency, with mission-critical positions remaining filled.

Bloomberg Law also reported Monday that the FDIC is looking to cut about 1,250 jobs and added that the total will include 500 people who accepted the White House’s earlier buyout offer and the 170 probationary employees let go by the agency, although those terminations are tied up in court.

It was reported Jan. 28 that the FDIC rescinded more than 200 job offers it had made to new examiners and that it had done so to comply with a federal government-wide hiring freeze announced by President Donald Trump in an executive order about a week earlier.

Trump issued his executive order on the hiring freeze Jan. 20, saying no federal civilian position that was vacant on that date could be filled, no new position could be created and no contracting outside the federal government could be done.

It was reported Friday (April 18) that a federal judge blocked the Trump Administration’s to lay off 90% of the staff of another banking regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), while she determines whether this plan violates her previous order.

In her previous order, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the CFPB could not conduct a reduction-in-force (RIF) until it conducted a “particularized assessment” showing that employees who are laid off are not necessary for the agency to fulfill its statutory duties.