DoD will rely primarily on attrition to achieve the goal of reducing certain headquarters activities by 25 percent, and for present layoffs are not expected, officials said in an article published in an in-house news service.
They said the cuts will translate into about 300 positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense—about 60 of which already are vacant—and about 1,300 in defense agencies and field activities. Projected cost savings are to be shifted into modernization and improved readiness and training.
Voluntary early retirement offers and voluntary separation incentive payments—the DoD term for buyouts—are expected. DoD has asked to increase the maximum buyout payment to $40,000, and in a spending bill the Senate is moving to grant that increase.
“We strongly encourage leadership and management to more broadly review the skillset of the employees who are affected by this, to put them in positions that you might not have considered them for previously,” an official said in the article.
Congress has been pressing DoD to assure that the reduction—initially announced as a 20 percent cut at the Pentagon’s initiative, later raised to 25 percent—results in real cuts and not simply a reshuffling of responsibilities to lower-level offices.