The deferred retirement scheme is an incredibly ill-conceived way of shrinking the government. The way the incentive is structured it encourages the workers who are most able to find another job to leave. These are your best workers. The ones that will disproportionately stay are the least competitive in the job market. The other group of workers that will take it are those that were going to leave or retire anyway. So, for them its a waste of money and the transfer of their knowledge is cut short.

The same goes for the other DOGE employment initiative of firing probationary employees. These are mostly either people you have just hired or those that have been promoted. Of course, these are the employees you would most want to keep.