In an unexpected move, the administration of President Donald Trump initiated a widespread termination of federal workers on Thursday. Officials from the Office of Personnel Management held meetings with agency leaders, instructing them to dismiss probationary employees, as reported by a source familiar with the situation. While data from the Office of Personnel Management suggests that hundreds of thousands of individuals could be impacted, the exact number of employees facing termination remains uncertain.
Probationary employees, who typically have served in the federal government for one to two years and do not yet have full civil service protections, are the target of these dismissals. A spokesperson from the Office of Personnel Management emphasized that the probationary period is part of the employment process and not a guarantee of permanent job security. The current actions are being taken independently by agencies in response to a recent hiring freeze and in line with the administration’s efforts to restructure and optimize the federal government’s operations for the benefit of the American people.
Criticism of the firings has been swift, with the American Federation of Government Employees denouncing the administration’s actions. The union’s president, Everett Kelley, criticized the mass dismissals as politically motivated and aimed at weakening the federal workforce. Kelley highlighted that the fired employees were committed public servants and questioned the administration’s motives behind the terminations.
Details on the extent of the firings are still unclear, though some departments have already started implementing the dismissals. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced the termination of over 1,000 employees, including probationary staff, out of a total of more than 43,000 probationary employees. Similarly, the Education Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have begun reducing their workforce, with reports of substantial cuts and restructuring.
This wave of terminations follows a previous announcement that around 75,000 federal employees accepted the administration’s offer for deferred resignation, agreeing to leave their positions but remain on payroll until September. Recent actions by the Trump administration have also targeted other federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, leading to significant workforce adjustments and contractor layoffs.
ency has pledged to reduce what he and Trump characterize as unnecessary spending. At the outset of his second term, Trump announced a freeze on hiring, prohibiting the filling of vacant federal civilian positions and the creation of new positions in the majority of cases. This freeze has encountered legal hurdles, as a federal appeals court recently denied the Trump administration’s request to halt a lower court’s temporary suspension of the freeze on federal funding.
