- Key insight: The Office of Inspector General says the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. lost 20% of its staff in 2025, potentially stretching its supervision and crisis management capacities.
- Supporting data: The FDIC offices managing bank resolution and complex bank supervision each lost roughly 20% of their staff, the OIG report said.
- Forward look: Further cuts at the agency are planned for 2026, as the administration scales back supervision. Efforts to reform the agency’s workplace culture amid a highly publicised investigation remain ongoing, the OIG report said.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Office of Inspector General on Thursday warned that a steep reduction in the FDIC workforce and ongoing efforts to scale back supervision at the FDIC could strain the agency’s ability to effectively supervise banks and respond to future bank failures.
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The agency watchdog said that staff reduction efforts at the FDIC that began early last year after President Donald Trump’s inauguration have potentially made the agency less prepared to respond to a crisis, particularly its capacity to conduct routine supervisory activities and resolve failed institutions. An FDIC spokesperson was not immediately available for comment on the report.
“Our audits previously concluded that ongoing staff attrition raised concerns about the FDIC’s capacity to maintain sufficient skilled personnel for statutorily required examinations and to execute the resolution and receivership activities for failed financial institutions effectively,” the watchdog wrote in
The report notes the FDIC saw staffing fall about 20% last year. The total workforce, which was more than 6,300 employees at the end of 2024, fell to just over 5,000 by January 1, 2026, the combined result of buyouts, early retirements and attrition related to the Trump administration’s federal workforce cuts. The report makes clear the full impact is still unfolding.
Beyond fewer staff overall, efforts to retain specialized talent — especially bank examiners and resolution staff needed to monitor risks and handle failures — have been made more challenging due to attrition and the prospect of more staff retirements in the near future.
According to the report, the FDIC’s Division of Resolutions and Receiverships lost 22 percent of its workforce in 2025, and 28% of those remaining are eligible to retire in 2026. The Division of Complex Institution Supervision and Resolution also lost more than 20% of staff in 2025, including “significant losses” in its Resolution Readiness Branch.
The watchdog says the agency plans even more cuts in 2026, including through downsizing its Continuous Examination Program, with fewer targeted reviews and examiners for banks with between $10 to 30 billion in assets. Changes to consumer compliance exams for banks with $350 million to $3 billion are also less frequent, reducing compliance staffing, the report said.
While the OIG noted that the banking industry remains healthy, as indicated by the most recent
“Unknown risks could emerge rapidly, requiring enhanced supervision and more frequent, rigorous examinations,” the OIG report said. “Sustaining this vigilance depends on maintaining a workforce with the requisite expertise and skills.”
The report also says the agency’s workplace culture problems, detailed in 2024
“The primary issues identified were persistent harassment and inappropriate behavior over several years, ineffective reporting mechanisms and widespread fear of retaliation, and lack of meaningful disciplinary action for misconduct,” the OIG wrote.
The agency did make progress addressing the findings in the report,
“While the FDIC has made progress … in improving its workplace culture, 5 of 30
OIG recommendations remain open and outstanding, indicating that work remains,” the OIG concluded. “We will continue to work with the FDIC to ensure that OIG recommendations are addressed and the FDIC continues in a positive direction with respect to improving workplace culture.”