The Trump administration announced that full-time federal employees in public safety positions, including air traffic control (ATC) workers, are not to resign under the “deferred resignation offer.”
During the first week of his administration, US President Donald Trump issued several orders regarding federal workers. On January 28, 2025, the White House introduced a “deferred resignation offer” that impacts two million full-time civilian federal jobs.
“The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,” the program stated.
This program is valid until February 6, 2025. Another executive order mandated that federal employees return to in-person work.
On February 2, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released an updated fact sheet stating that the offer does not apply to “those in positions related to public safety.”
The OPM stated that deferred resignation is available to all full-time federal employees except military personnel of the armed forces, US Postal Service workers, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and public safety roles, which includes air traffic controllers.
Prior to that, Trump announced a hiring freeze for federal civilian employees. As part of this freeze, no federal civilian position may be filled as of 12:00 on January 20, 2025, and no new position may be created.
At the beginning of 2024, the FAA reported that the country was short of 3,000 air traffic controllers. By September 2024, the FAA announced it had hired 1,800 air traffic controllers in 2024, with a final total of 1,811 for Fiscal Year 2024, marking “the largest number of hires in nearly a decade.”
Following the announcement of the deferred resignation scheme, which saw employees at the FAA receive an offer to resign with eight months’ pay, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) published a statement in which it shared its concerns to see the loss of “experienced aviation safety personnel during a universally recognized air traffic controller staffing shortage.”
