The U.S. federal government is far more successful in hiring underrepresented groups than Silicon Valley. However, this progress might unravel if President-elect Donald Trump's administration pushes through large federal budget cuts, leading to mass workforce reductions.
Black workers, for instance, make up more than 25% of the federal government's technical workforce, or about 81,000 employees in computer-related jobs, software development and engineering, according to government data. By contrast, Black workers hold only 8% of computer, engineering and management roles in the private sector, despite representing more than 12% of the U.S. population, according to a Brookings Institution study released this week.
Silicon Valley reports even smaller numbers. Black workers in tech roles at Google are at 4.2%, and at Microsoft, it's 5.9%, according to their respective 2024 diversity reports.
The federal government has historically prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Beyond racial and gender diversity, it also gives hiring preference to veterans, who at the end of fiscal year 2023 accounted for 30% of its 2.3 million civilian employees. About 53% of veterans in the federal workforce have a disability, according to FY 2021 data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
However, Trump's incoming administration has proposed federal cuts that could shrink its workforce by half, potentially hurting diversity representation at federal agencies.
Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX and co-founded Tesla, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical company entrepreneur, will lead Trump's planned Department of Government Efficiency, which is tasked with regulation and workforce reduction. "A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy," they said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday.
DEI does not have Trump administration support. Musk called DEI "immoral" and "illegal," claiming that it discriminates based on race and gender in a January post on X, formerly Twitter.
Reductions in force of 50% or more of the federal workforce will not only significantly erode pathways to these jobs for underrepresented workers, but will likely cause a bump in unemployment nationally.
Robert MaximFellow, Brookings Metro
Federal workforce cuts
Robert Maxim, a fellow at Brookings Metro, which studies community development, said, "Reductions in force of 50% or more of the federal workforce will not only significantly erode pathways to these jobs for underrepresented workers, but will likely cause a bump in unemployment nationally." Maxim was the lead author of the Brookings study "The Future of the U.S. Digital Economy Depends on Equitable Access to Its Jobs."
Maxim said whether the Trump administration can enact such sweeping layoffs is unclear. But vacancies left unfilled alongside increased outsourcing could hit DEI goals hard. He added that such actions "would close critical pathways to underrepresented workers" in federal tech jobs.
Federal employees who lose their jobs might also face challenges transitioning to private sector roles. "IT workers may need to update their skills to fill private sector jobs," said Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, a labor market research firm. Displaced workers will likely face competition from younger employees with college degrees who are willing to work for lower pay.
Still, specific segments of the private sector might benefit, particularly in high-demand fields such as cybersecurity. "There is so much top cybersecurity talent in the federal government that if any of these folks get axed, civilian employers will scoop them up in a second," said David Foote, chief analyst and chief research officer at Foote Partners.
The Trump administration's approach sharply contrasts with policies under President Joe Biden, who has emphasized expanding DEI initiatives in federal employment. After Trump lost the election in 2020, on his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order rescinding a Trump ban "that prevented federal employees from participating in diversity and sensitivity training."
That diversity training ban might return as early as Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.
Patrick Thibodeau is an editor at large for TechTarget Editorial who covers HCM and ERP technologies. He's worked for more than two decades as an enterprise IT reporter.
