Carr Touts Job Cuts, Savings Ahead of Congressional Hearing

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2025 - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr revealed in prepared House testimony that the FCC had shed 78 full-time employees since the start of Fiscal Year 2025, and had discovered more than $6.7 million in savings, while reducing its authorized contract spending ceiling amount by more than $567 million.

Carr stated that, as of April 28, the FCC had 1,383 full-time employees, down from 1,461 employees at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025. He explained that this decline was the result of early retirement, the deferred resignation program, and natural turnover. These cuts are in line with the Trump administration’s recent directives to reduce the size of the federal workforce.

Carr also asserted that the FCC was well-equipped with the $390.2 million budget granted to it by Congress, and argued that Congress should restore its spectrum auction authority to raise additional revenue. He explained that the FCC was using revenue from the auctioning of AWS-3 licenses to help fund the “Rip-and-Replace” program. Carr further stated that most of the savings his agency had found had come from modifying “bloated and duplicative IT contracts.”

Carr also noted that most of the agency’s workforce – over 92 percent – was required to work full-time at the office, a dramatic reversal from the beginning of the year, when 98 percent of agency employees worked remotely at least some of the time.

Carr is scheduled to testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. His testimony can be live streamed here.