Home Affairs has opened voluntary redundancies to public servants and managers across its 16,000 strong workforce, as a staffing squeeze takes hold of the federal public service.
Staff in the APS and Executive Level ranks will be eligible to apply, as will the Australian Border Force members.
Redundancies will not be offered to the department's 187 senior executives.
A spokesperson for Home Affairs would not say why the department was looking to cut costs, but it fits a broader trend across the service in the lead-up to Labor's fifth budget.
"The decision to implement a [voluntary redundancy] program is not connected to any one issue but rather is one component of the department's broader workforce and budget management," they said.
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The departments of Climate Change, Social Services, Prime Minister and Cabinet and Education are all offering redundancies, as are the National Indigenous Australians Agency, Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has meanwhile frozen recruitment in the lead-up to the budget.
Labor defeated a Coalition campaign against a significant increase to the federal public service in the 2025 election by successfully drawing links between Peter Dutton and US President Donald Trump.
Instead, the Albanese government has defended its addition of about 41,000 public servants since it came to power by promising to restore integrity to government and find billions in savings by slashing contractors, consultants and labour hire.
Labor is not expected to cut public service numbers significantly in the next budget but agency heads are preparing for tough decisions in the next budget, as they face pressure to find additional savings while paying out a 3.4 per cent wage to staff in 2026.
Sam McCrone, a representative from the Community and Public Sector Union, said the push for savings was exacerbating significant workload pressures.
"This government needs to step in and direct agencies to be looking for other ways to save money and stop the over-reliance on wasteful and expensive outsourcing of public sector work.
"And we need to see next month's federal budget prioritise and invest in public services and public sector jobs."
Former Finance deputy secretary Stephen Bartos said the redundancies were fairly widespread, but that some agencies were focusing more on cutting external labour.
"A number of departments have, I have heard, cut back quite considerably on contractors," he said.
"Contractors aren't having their contracts renewed for next year, which is not the same as redundancies, but has a similar effect [of reducing their expenses budget]."
Pictured: Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster in Senate Estimates in February 2026
Published 29 April 2026 in the Canberra Times, written by Miriam Webber, photo credit Keegan Carroll
