Another surge of unemployment claims from laid-off federal workers likely on the horizon

Unemployment claims from Colorado’s federal workers have been relatively stable in recent months after a surge earlier this year when the Trump administration first began slashing government jobs.

Since President Donald Trump was sworn into office for his second term in January, 1,077 federal workers have filed for unemployment benefits in Colorado, according to the state’s labor department. The number has more than doubled in the past seven months, but it’s been a slow climb. Last week, 14 federal workers filed for unemployment benefits.

The cuts to the federal workforce, spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have been chaotic. The effort was beset by lawsuits, and many workers were called back when it became clear that some cuts went too deep.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who oversaw DOGE’s most drastic moves, left his post in April after a reported fallout with Trump. It’s unclear who is in charge now, even though DOGE is still embedded across government agencies.

The confusion makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what’s happening with Colorado’s tens of thousands of federal workers. But the number of federal employees filing for unemployment benefits is likely to jump in the coming months, according to Andrew Hudson, president and CEO of Andrew Hudson’s Jobs List, a Colorado job board.

“The unemployment claims do still remain somewhat low, and there's a lot of different reasons for that,” Hudson said.

One big reason is that many workers took a buyout offer that put them on administrative leave through Oct 1. That means they’re still getting paid.

“They're not formally counted as unemployed right away since they're still technically employed,” Hudson said.

Once the administrative leave ends, those workers will be eligible for unemployment if they can’t find work. Moreover, the unemployment system is subject to administrative delays, Hudson said.

“There's … verification complexities, sometimes it's just processing bottlenecks, things like that,” Hudson said. “But I do believe you're going to see a lot more unemployment claims from federal workers between now and the end of the year.”