CFTC Staffing Falls to 15-Year Low as Agency Takes on Broader Market Oversight

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has lost roughly one-quarter of its workforce during President Donald Trump’s second administration, reducing staffing to levels not seen since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as the agency assumes larger responsibilities involving cryptocurrency and prediction markets.

The contraction has affected enforcement attorneys, economists, market surveillance personnel and other career employees responsible for overseeing derivatives markets. The CFTC’s Chicago enforcement office, historically central to major fraud and manipulation cases, reportedly lost its final enforcement attorney in February after previously employing approximately 20 lawyers.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig has said the agency is repositioning its workforce and plans to hire employees with expertise relevant to emerging markets. At the same time, the commission offered another round of buyouts and early retirement packages in June, allowing eligible employees to remain on administrative leave until separating Dec. 31. The agency reportedly expects to hire as many as 100 employees by the end of 2026.

The competing departures and hiring plans leave uncertainty over how quickly the CFTC can rebuild institutional capacity, particularly in enforcement and market oversight.

CFTC Workforce Drops by About 150 Positions

The CFTC recorded 708 full-time equivalent positions in fiscal year 2024, according to its fiscal 2026 budget request. The agency’s fiscal 2025 enacted staffing level was 636 positions, a reduction of 72 FTEs, or approximately 10%.

Subsequent reporting placed the agency’s actual workforce at approximately 550 to 556 employees by early 2026, representing a decline of more than 20% from fiscal 2024 and roughly 25% since Trump returned to office. That would be the agency’s lowest staffing level in approximately 15 years.

The reduction has not been evenly distributed. The administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal identified substantial staffing declines across the agency’s operational divisions when compared with fiscal 2024:

• Division of Enforcement: 161 FTEs in fiscal 2024, with 114 requested for fiscal 2026.
• Division of Market Oversight: 78 FTEs, declining to 72.
• Division of Clearing and Risk: 86 FTEs, declining to 75.
• Market Participants Division: 67 FTEs, declining to 59.
• Office of General Counsel: 60 FTEs, declining to 57.
• Administration: 134 FTEs, declining to 112.

The proposal would increase total authorized staffing from the fiscal 2025 enacted level of 636 to 650 in fiscal 2026, although the agency would remain 58 positions below its fiscal 2024 workforce. The budget document also states that the chairman would allocate employees among divisions based on mission requirements.

Enforcement would experience one of the largest reductions. The fiscal 2026 request proposed 114 enforcement FTEs and approximately $50.3 million for the division, compared with 161 employees and $69.3 million in fiscal 2024.

Departures Include Experienced Enforcement Personnel

The total workforce numbers do not fully capture the loss of experience associated with the departures.

The Chicago enforcement office has participated in significant CFTC investigations involving commodities fraud, market manipulation, spoofing and digital assets. By February, its attorney staff had reportedly fallen from about 20 lawyers to none, leaving three investigators and a paralegal. Six senior employees with more than a century of combined experience were among those removed or pushed out in 2025, according to reporting on the office.

Other reports have described career employees being placed on leave or leaving after raising concerns about regulatory decisions involving cryptocurrency and prediction-market companies. Those accounts remain contested politically, and the CFTC has characterized its broader changes as an effort to focus resources on serious fraud, manipulation and customer harm rather than using enforcement actions to establish regulatory policy.

Then-Acting Chair Caroline Pham reorganized the Division of Enforcement in February 2025, replacing several specialized task forces with a Complex Fraud Task Force and a Retail Fraud and General Enforcement Task Force. The agency said the structure would improve efficiency and prioritize fraud prevention and victim assistance.

Enforcement Output Has Declined

The staffing contraction has coincided with a sharp change in publicly reported enforcement activity.

The CFTC filed 58 enforcement actions in fiscal 2024, including 10 involving digital assets. The agency reported obtaining more than $17.1 billion in monetary relief, although a large portion of that total came from a small number of major cases.

The agency’s fiscal 2025 enforcement report said leadership deliberately moved away from what it called “regulation by enforcement.” The CFTC’s public enforcement docket has continued to include fraud, spoofing, registration and prediction-market cases, but the number of new matters has remained significantly below fiscal 2024 levels.

Enforcement totals alone do not establish that staffing reductions caused the decline. Changes in administration policy, case selection, litigation timing and the size of individual settlements can also affect annual statistics. However, fewer attorneys and investigators may limit the number and complexity of cases the agency can pursue simultaneously.

Crypto and Prediction Markets Expand the Workload

The staffing changes are occurring as the CFTC’s jurisdictional workload becomes more complex.

The agency regulates futures, options, swaps, clearinghouses, designated contract markets, intermediaries and other derivatives-market participants. Its fiscal 2026 budget materials identify growing data volumes, additional registered entities and continued technological changes across the markets it supervises.

Selig has also asserted federal CFTC authority over prediction markets and has supported legislation that could give the commission a larger role in regulating digital commodity markets. In April testimony before the House Agriculture Committee, he said the agency was providing guidance on crypto assets, stablecoins and tokenized collateral while strengthening protections for prediction-market customers.

Any congressional expansion of the CFTC’s crypto jurisdiction would require rulemaking, registration reviews, examinations, data analysis and enforcement capabilities. Those functions depend on specialized personnel who may require significant training even if the agency meets its reported goal of hiring 100 employees.

Warren Asks GAO to Review Staffing Cuts

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the CFTC’s workforce reductions and determine whether they are impairing the agency’s ability to regulate derivatives markets and combat fraud.

Her request seeks an examination of whether the staffing actions complied with federal requirements, how they affected enforcement and other statutory responsibilities, and whether the reductions contributed to fraud, waste or abuse.

The request follows a June letter in which Warren questioned Selig about the agency’s reduced workforce, lower enforcement activity and expanded responsibilities. She argued that those conditions could leave investors and the financial system more exposed to misconduct.

GAO has confirmed receipt of the latest request but has not announced whether it will conduct the review. The watchdog generally evaluates congressional requests before determining their scope and scheduling.

For derivatives firms, financial institutions and other regulated entities, the staffing changes could produce a mixed compliance environment. Fewer personnel may mean slower examinations, registration decisions and enforcement investigations. A shift toward new hires with digital-asset expertise could also lead to greater scrutiny of crypto, retail derivatives and prediction-market activity while traditional enforcement teams operate with fewer experienced staff.