A year after DOGE, former federal employees are still looking for work

After he applied to his 599th job, John Burg stopped counting.

After he applied to his 599th job, John Burg stopped counting.

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Burg was laid off as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in January 2025, after a decades-long career that took him to Thailand, Kosovo and El Salvador. He was one of more than 300,000 federal workers and contractors whose jobs were eliminated by the Department of Government Efficiency.

John Burg in Iraq for the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010.Courtesy John BurgOne year, one massive spreadsheet of job leads and only a handful of interviews later, Burg has returned to the job he had in college, doing carpentry jobs for his Takoma Park neighborhood, just outside of Washington.