In accordance with President Trump's plan to reduce the size of governmental bodies and lower the taxpayers' burden, the EPA is implementing a hiring freeze while nearly 50% of its employees retire by 2021.

It is estimated that if every EPA employee eligible to retire by 2021 does so, the total number of people employed by the EPA would go from over 14,000 to just under 8,000.

It was stressed by an EPA spokesperson that nobody is being fired in order to make this possible. Many people are retiring willingly, being bought out, or even accepting early retirements.

Scott Pruitt, the EPA's chief Administrator, stated, "We're proud to report that we're reducing the size of government, protecting taxpayer dollars and staying true to our core mission of protecting the environment."
In December 2017, the New York Times reported that several of the people who have left the EPA were key to the success of the agency. At this moment, with the hiring freeze in place, it is not clear how the EPA plans to counteract the loss of nearly 50% of its employees, especially the ones that played such a vital role to the agency.