NPR.

The federal government is the largest employer in the country.

Not counting the military, the federal civil service employs around three million people.

We're talking clerks, nurses, engineers, lawyers.

Janitors, welders, park rangers, and postal workers. And get this, Darren, I just learned this

today. The federal government even employs bakers. I know where to get my government bread

from there. And so the basic picture is the federal workforce

is massive. It's also a workforce President Trump really wants to shrink and reshape.

Yesterday, he offered buyouts to workers who don't want to go back to the office. And last

week, he issued a bunch of new orders, including a hiring freeze and a plan to prioritize job seekers who are, quote, passionate about

the ideals of our American Republic, unquote. And while Trump's actions have drawn criticism and

thrown some agencies into chaos, some argue that there's actually an opportunity here.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma. And I'm Daryan Woods. Today on the show,

we talk with Jennifer Palka. She's a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center who has spent years

thinking and writing and doing government reform. She also served as Deputy Chief

Technology Officer under President Obama, and she was an advisor to the Defense Department

during President Trump's first term. After the break, she will explain why, in her view,

government hiring has been broken for a long time and what she thinks about Trump's

current proposals to fix it.

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