OSHA inspectors and investigators are safe from forced resignations as part of the federal government’s deferred resignation program because they are considered essential enforcement employees, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said at a Senate hearing May 22 on the Department of Labor’s fiscal year 2026 budget.

The exemption also applies to Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors.

“For our inspectors and our investigators, who I think are key to the Department of Labor, the essential workers through OSHA, MSHA and Wage and Hour Division, we have exempted from taking (part in) that program because they are essential to the Department of Labor for enforcement,” Chavez-DeRemer told the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

The White House’s budget request for FY 2026 asks for an approximately 35% deduction to DOL’s funding, or about $4.6 billion less than the $13.3 billion allocated to the department in FY 2025.

Salaries saved by resignations of about 2,700 employees would be part of that deduction, Chavez-DeRemer said. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s website lists a total workforce of 16,640 at DOL.

Already an estimated 2,700 DOL employees—roughly 20 percent of the department’s staff—had retired or taken the administration’s buyout offer by early May, even before DOGE’s reductions in force had taken effect, according to a report in The Guardian.

It’s estimated that about 300 OSHA employees, mostly senior careerists working at OSHA headquarters in Washington, have taken early retirements.