General de-staffing is common. Your comment on USAD shows malicious policy, but I guess I'll chip in with general woe.
1. Private: had a job in an operating power plant on the Ohio, 2008. Two floors of offices, for support functions like an infirmary, machine shop. All vacant except the engineering office and the union breakroom.
2. Public: conference in what's called the GSA Building (1800 F St NW) in the mid 1990s (nice auditorium). Typical miles of hallways, more than half the offices empty, people there told me. A big picture of Al Gore (V.P. 1993-2001) stood by the entrance inside, for leading the "Reinventing Government" initiative.
3. Semi-public: skeleton crews at USPS and Amtrak. It's become a safety problem on the latter, with local commuter trains typically better staffed.
4. Regulated/contracted: one-person crews on bucket trucks, garbage pickup, long-haul transport, all jobs that are easier with teamwork.
The only thing resembling former gangs of workers I see are on construction sites, road maintenance, business bubble offices, etc., and even then it's about half.
The question would be how much is efficiency, how much is social policy, how much is management bias. Academics and activists have spent two centuries trying to argue the market is not necessarily efficient even in micro-economic choices. Fairly obvious, and it's a mix, but plenty of well-funded groups take the other view.