Washington – Trump administration on Thursday intensified its extensive efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, the largest employer in the country, ordering agencies to dismiss almost all trial employees who have not yet gained protection in civil service – potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of thousands of employees.
In addition, employees of some agencies were warned that enormous cuts in the workplace would come.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, which informed the agency leaders to plan “a large -scale reduction”.
The decision on trial workers, who generally have less than a year of work, came from the Personal Management Office, which serves as a human resource department for the federal government. The notification was confirmed by a person acquainted with a case that spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly.
Even employees in the personnel office itself were not resistant: dozens of trial workers in OPM were said in Thursday afternoon group call that they were released and then instructed to leave the building within half an hour, according to another person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
It is expected that this will be the first step in sweeping dismissals. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, which informed the agency leaders to plan “a large -scale reduction”.
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Elon Musk, whose President Trump granted wide freedom to reduce government expenditure with his government department, I called on Thursday to eliminate entire agencies.
“I think we have to remove entire agencies, unlike their many of them,” Musk said through the video -coal at the summit of world government in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. “If we don’t remove weed roots, the weed can easily grow back.”
Everett Kelley, president of the American federation of government workers representing federal employees, said that the administration “used” the trial status of workers “to conduct politically driven mass madness, addressed to employees not because of performance, but because they were employed earlier, but because They were employed Trump took office. “
Thursday’s order was an extension of previous OPM tips that agencies informed at the beginning of this week that sample employees should be released if they do not meet high standards. It is not clear how many employees are currently in the trial period. According to government data kept by OPM, from March 2024, 220,000 employees had less than a year of work – the latest available data.
The dismissal of test workers began at the beginning of this week and included the Consumer Finance Protection Office and employees of the Education Department.
According to a union that represents employees of agency rights, including civil rights workers, specialists in special education and student assistance officials.
The exemptions also hit the department of explorers of veterans working on cancer treatment, addiction to opioids, prosthetics and exposure to burn, senator Patty Murray, Democrat, said on Thursday.
Murray said in a statement that she heard from VA researchers in her condition, who were ordered to stop their research immediately: “Not because their work is not desperately needed, but because Trump and Elon decided to release these researchers under the influence of whim.”
Public employees for environmental liability, a group that defends government employees, said that the food security service and the Department of Agriculture will be particularly affected by trial workers, because they have a problem with the recruitment of inspectors that belong to the present, all the time, mostly slaughter.
Civil federal workforce IN The lack of considering military staff and postal workers consists of about 2.4 million people. While about 20% of employees are in Washington and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, more than 80% live outside the Capitol region.
The exemption is unlikely to bring significant savings of the deficit. When the Congress Budget Office looked at this problem, he stated that the government spent $ 271 billion a year, compensating for civilian federal employees, with about 60% of this in total to employees employed by departments of defense, internal security and veterans.
The government could theoretically reduce all these employees and continue to be a deficit worth over $ 1 trillion, which would continue to boost, because tax revenues are needed to keep up with the growing costs of social insurance and Medicare.
Elaine Kamarck, a senior member of the Brookings Institution, said that the dismissal of employees in the trial period is defective because it is directed to younger employees.
“The demographic boom house retires and left, so actually the people you want to keep are probably most people who are currently in the trial period,” said Kamarck, who worked in the democratic administration of former President Bill Clinton, when about 426,000 places were cut off federal work for over eight years to prudently effort aimed at re -developing the government. “They are younger and probably have better skills and that’s what you want.”
The first attempt to reduce Trump’s working strength was a deferred resignation program, widely described as a buyout that offered payment to people until September 30, if he agrees to quit smoking. The White House said that 75,000 people registered and the federal judge cleared the legal obstacle in the program on Wednesday.
However, the number of employees who accepted the offer was smaller than the purpose of the administration, and Trump explained that he would take further steps.
The National Science Foundation and Department Housing and Urban Development employees were informed this week that in some cases a enormous reduction would come by half the workforce, according to the person familiar with the situation, which she said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss this.
The order signed by Trump on Tuesday decided that government functions not required by law would be priority priority for cuts, and employment will be circumscribed. With the exception of functions such as public safety, only one employee can be added for every four that will leave. In addition, recent employees would generally need the approval of the Doge representative, expanding the influence of Muska.
Trump praised Musk’s work to reduce federal expenses.
The republican president was also seriously critical of federal employees, especially those who want to work remotely, although his administration is At the same time, he is working on limiting the federal office space and ordering a termination of the lease agreement in the workplace throughout the entire government.
“Nobody will work from home,” Trump said on Monday. “They will go out, play tennis, play golf, do many things. They don’t work. “
