A year after Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effectively fired thousands of government employees, one federal agency that was affected by those cuts is now preparing to hire hundreds of people.
The General Services Administration (GSA), an agency that oversees the government’s IT department and real estate holdings, is hiring “approximately 400 positions” across its Public Building Service (PBS) division, according to an email obtained by WIRED.
“We’re thrilled to announce that the GSA Strategic Hiring Committee has approved the PBS staffing plan designed to address our workforce needs and strengthen our teams,” states an email sent by PBS chief of staff Donna Dix to employees on Monday.
The email goes on to say that the hiring effort will focus on “the most significant areas of need: facilities management, acquisition, and project management.”
GSA did not respond to a request for comment.
PBS, which manages the federal buildings under GSA’s banner, lost hundreds of employees in March 2025 following DOGE cuts. The agency, WIRED reported at the time, was also instructed to sell off more than 500 government buildings, some of which housed government agencies and the offices of US senators. One of the properties on the list was a sensitive complex housing a CIA facility in Northern Virginia. Since then, the agency has walked back the extent of these plans, and instead doubled down on assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expand across the US. WIRED reported in February that GSA and PBS were assisting ICE’s plans to lease offices throughout the US as part of a massive expansion campaign.
This isn’t the first time that PBS has announced plans to rehire or replace federal employees cut by DOGE. In September, hundreds of PBS employees were given the opportunity to return to work months after they accepted a deferred resignation offer, effectively making their half-year separation an extended vacation.
Stephen Ehikian, the former acting head of the GSA, left the agency in September 2025 after conducting extensive layoffs. As of last May, 2,100 workers took deferred resignation and 1,000 more were laid off. “The opportunity we had was to restructure [GSA], slim it down, and now the team’s in a phenomenal position to build it back the way they want,” he told Nextgov at the time. Ehikian’s wife previously worked for Elon Musk’s social media firm X.
Since leaving the government, Ehikian has moved into the private sector, running the enterprise AI firm C3 AI. Earlier this year, the company announced significant cuts to its workforce. Its stock plunged 17 percent following the announcement.
