Amy Uccello was laid off from her job at USAID in late January. Her husband lost his job at a nonprofit working with the agency shortly after.

Up until February, Joya Patel was an employee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Becoming a civil servant again would be no easy task right now.

There’s been a “targeted, surgical removal of data sets, or elements of data sets, that are not aligned with the administration’s priorities,” said Denice Ross at the Federation of American Scientists.

Some of the major DOGE cuts targeted administrative and communications staff at food safety agencies.

“In this sector, I found the spirit of collaboration to be unbelievable,” said Janti Soeripto, president and CEO of Save the Children U.S., “But, interestingly, that spirit and that culture hasn't translated into distribution deals or joint ventures.”

In a reversal, women lost more federal jobs than men in April.

The Forest Service lost more than 10% of its workforce to DOGE firings, and thousands more voluntarily resigned after the Trump administration’s “fork in the road” offer.