WASHINGTON, March 27 - An independent congressional watchdog said on Friday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission experienced a substantial reduction in personnel, with almost 20% of its workforce gone by September of the prior year. The losses, driven by normal attrition and cuts encouraged by the Trump administration, were heaviest in the divisions charged with oversight of investment managers and stock markets.
The Government Accountability Office reported that the decline left the SEC with an 18% smaller headcount for the government’s 2025 fiscal year. That fall is notably deeper than the reduction seen across the broader federal government, which shrank 12% over a longer timeframe, according to official figures cited in the watchdog report.
Officials in the White House had sought steep reductions across the federal government, and last year President Donald Trump and former advisor Elon Musk said "large-scale" cuts were necessary to rein in what they described as a wasteful and uncontrolled federal bureaucracy. The watchdog report said the SEC’s workforce erosion was largely a response to those demands.
The report noted that, as of last May, roughly 600 people - equal to about 12% of the agency’s staff - had taken voluntary buyouts. By September, the GAO found that more than 270 additional employees had departed through means outside those earlier buyout, resignation and retirement programs, resulting in the 18% overall decline.
Critics of the administration’s approach and some agency staff have warned that the staffing reductions could impair the SEC’s ability to police markets and to respond to crises. The watchdog highlighted the concentration of losses in areas responsible for monitoring investment managers and the operation of stock markets as a particular concern.
The SEC is funded through industry fees rather than direct taxpayer dollars. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the GAO findings.
Context and implications
The GAO’s findings describe a two-part reduction: early voluntary buyouts that removed about 12% of staff by May, followed by additional departures that together brought the agency’s workforce down 18% by September. The report frames these changes as tied to White House demands for broad staffing cuts across government.