CIA offers staff buyouts as Trump looks to shrink workforce

The Central Intelligence Agency has offered staff buyouts to shrink the workforce in line with the Trump administration’s broader job cuts across the government and to sharpen the spy service’s focus on top priorities like China. 

The Agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move would make it the first intelligence agency to join a voluntary redundancy program initiated by President Donald Trump for federal employees.

The agency is also freezing the hiring of job seekers already given a conditional offer, the paper reported, citing an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

As part of the offer sent to the workforce on Tuesday, employees could receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30, without having to work. It’s unclear how many will take the offer at the agency, where staff retention is high and workers often stay for decades. 

John Ratcliffe, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA, promised in his Senate confirmation hearing to focus on the threats posed by China and expand the volume of intelligence that officers collect around the world.

“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the administration’s national security priorities,” the CIA said in an emailed statement, adding the efforts were part of a strategy to “infuse the agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission.”

The move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes after 2 million federal workers were given similar offers as part of Trump ally Elon Musk’s efforts to cut government headcount and programs. That has initially excluded national security agencies but Ratcliffe decided to allow the CIA to participate.

The move is part of a massive overhaul of the US government by Trump, who has vowed to radically downsize the federal workforce in the name of efficiency and frugality that has sent shock waves through Washington.

The report on the buyout offers at the CIA - whose work gathering foreign intelligence is vital to US national security - came just hours after Trump announced an extraordinary scheme for the United States to "take over the Gaza Strip."

The CIA did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.