Some federal employees who have been laid off were reportedly given only 30 minutes to pack their belongings and vacate federal offices. Federal agencies were ordered by Donald Trump to fire mostly probationary staff, with as many as 200,000 workers set to be affected and some made to rush off the premises, the Washington Post reported.
More mass layoffs came on Friday as approximately 2,300 employees have been fired from the US interior department.
The interior department oversees the US’s natural resources and manages 500m acres of public land, including national parks. The widespread layoffs were confirmed by three sources with knowledge on the subject, who spoke to Reuters anonymously.
Probationary employees at two US agriculture department research agencies were also fired, Reuters reported, citing two anonymous sources. The exact number of terminated workers has not been confirmed, but layoffs reportedly happened overnight.
Several federal unions have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for mass terminations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ABC News reported. The plaintiffs argued that Russ Vought, the acting director of CFPB, plans to slash 95% of the agency’s workforce, essentially gutting the agency.
The large-scale layoff strategy, led by Elon Musk’s so called “department of government efficiency”, is meant to cut costs by downsizing the federal government. Trump and Musk have both criticized the federal workforce as being oversized, with Trump calling the federal government “bloated” and filled with “people that are unnecessary”. Musk said on Thursday that the US should “delete entire agencies”, comparing them to “weeds” that needed to be rooted out.
But massive layoffs have created chaos for affected federal employees. Thousands of workers were fired in group calls or via pre-recorded messages in recent days, the Post reported. Others were told they would be laid off by email, but never received such messages.
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told the Associated Press that firing employees on probation is flawed because it targets younger workers.
“Baby boomers are retiring right and left, so actually the people you want to keep are probably most of the people who are right now on probation,” said Kamarck, who worked in former president Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration when about 426,000 federal jobs were cut over more than eight years in a deliberative effort aimed at reinventing government. “They’re younger and presumably have better skills, and that’s who you want.”
About 100 employees at the office of personnel management (OPM) were fired in a Microsoft Teams group call, CNN reported, and told they had half an hour to leave the building.
OPM workers were told that they were terminated because they did not accept the Trump administration’s deferred resignation plan, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union told CNN. The buyout offers allowed employees who agreed to stop working to be paid through 30 September, although some have questioned if the payment offer is valid.
Everett Kelley, head of the AFGE, which represents 800,000 federal workers, has condemned the layoffs and promised to use “every legal challenge available”, in comments to the Post.
“Employees were given no notice, no due process, and no opportunity to defend themselves in a blatant violation of the principles of fairness and merit that are supposed to govern federal employment,” said Kelley.
So far, at least six agencies have carried out widespread layoffs. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees services and benefits to military veterans, laid off 1,000 probationaries, Reuters reported. A termination notice to VA employees stated and CNN reported: “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”
Termination notices were also sent to employees at the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the General Services Administration (GSA).
Additional layoffs are expected at the National Science Foundation and Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Post reported, citing a person with knowledge on the reductions who spoke anonymously. The US Forest Service, which manages 193m acres (78m hectares) of US public lands, is also expected to fire more than 3,000 workers.
The job slashing comes as a judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s buyout offers could proceed, with officials then closing the plan to employees who may still have been weighing the decision.
Approximately 3.75% of workers – or about 75,000 people – accepted the deal, Semafor reported. The figure is below the 5-10% of workers that the White House aimed to get rid of and estimated would accept the buyout offers.
Send us a tip
If you have information you’d like to share securely with the Guardian about the impact of cuts to federal programs, please use a non-work device to contact us via the Signal messaging app at (646) 886-8761
