President Donald Trump has begun a massive layoff of permanent federal employees and is expected to accelerate in the coming weeks, with thousands more employees being laid off. But the layoffs are not sudden.
This week, federal agencies face a deadline to provide Trump administration officials with plans for a reduction in force, a dramatic downsizing of the nation’s more than 2 million federal workers that will occur over the next few months. Along with layoffs, some agencies are expected to indefinitely extend their hiring freezes, eliminate currently vacant positions and consolidate offices as ways to reduce headcount.
Donald Trump Guided by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency aides, Donald Trump has spent his first eight weeks in office focused on dismantling the federal government, including shutting down and laying off the staff of the United States Agency for International Development and taking steps to do the same to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump has also begun dismantling the Department of Education with cuts to about half of its workforce.
Donald Trump Signs Executive Order Changing Job Classifications
After a buyout offer was accepted by fewer federal employees than expected, tens of thousands of probationary federal workers were laid off. Probationary workers include employees in their first year or two on the job, people who have recently moved between federal agencies and people who were recently promoted.
The firings have affected all 50 states and include employees at agencies that Americans frequently interact with, including the National Park Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Internal Revenue Service, National Institutes of Health and many others.
The White House has not responded to repeated requests from USA TODAY for a precise number of fired employees. Here’s a timeline of how Trump’s workforce firings have taken shape, starting with Inauguration Day.
Among his first actions as president, Donald Trump signed an executive order that revives a policy from the final days of his first administration known as Schedule F. The directive creates a new employment classification for tens of thousands of nonpartisan career civil servants, effectively stripping them of job protections by reclassifying them as at-will positions, meaning they can be dismissed for nearly any reason. Among his first actions as president, Trump signed an executive order that revives a policy from the final days of his first administration. known as Schedule F. The directive creates a new employment classification for tens of thousands of nonpartisan career civil servants, effectively stripping them of job protections by reclassifying them as at-will positions, meaning they can be dismissed for nearly any reason.