An analysis by Indeed, a US job search website, shows that from January to February this year, job applications from federal workers laid off by government departments surged by 50%. This is an early sign of the scale of the job market impact of layoffs being carried out at federal agencies by Musk's Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), which is expected to continue to have an impact in 2025.

Research shows that at government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Department of Agriculture or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, federal employees applied for jobs in February that were 75% higher than the 2022 baseline.

The DOGE threat is most severe for highly educated federal employees: About 68% of federal employees who were actively looking for a new job on Indeed last month

This suggests that DOGE layoffs are disproportionately targeting workers with advanced degrees who hope to supplement their income by getting new jobs before being pushed out. (Indeed, current data cannot differentiate between job seekers looking for work first or those looking for work after being laid off.)

"This is a huge shift," said Cory Stahle, an economist at IndeedHiringLab.

Searches for professional job titles common among federal employees, such as "policy analyst," "contracts specialist" or "compliance," also increased significantly, with federal employee searches for the "policy analyst" position increasing 10 times from a year ago. Searches for “employee relations” increased 13 times, while searches for “horticulture” increased 27 times — a possible indicator that unemployed USDA employees are looking for professional jobs.

Indeed's data is one of the first numerical indicators of the impact of federal layoffs on the job market. The February jobs report showed 10,000 fewer federal jobs than in January, but that number is forward-looking and does not include people who lost their jobs after the middle of the month.

Nationwide, jobless claims also remained stable, although claims surged in Washington, D.C., to the highest level since 2021 during the week of March 8.

Indeed wrote that these early indicators "offer some clues as to the scale of the potential influx of new workers in a national job market that has been largely stable so far but is also weakening."

The overall white-collar job market in the U.S. has cooled sharply since last year, so the situation for job seekers is worrying.

"As well-educated workers flood the market, job postings are dwindling," Starr said. "Well-educated people are looking for jobs and there are fewer opportunities for their experience, and that's a friction."

As Fortune has previously reported, many unemployed government employees, especially those who specialize in the natural sciences, may have difficulty finding corresponding jobs in the private sector and may end up in jobs that are overqualified for their job.