Trump Admin Starts Terminating Workers Across Government Agencies

The entrance to the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building that houses the Office of Personnel Management headquarters in Washington on June 5, 2021. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Trump administration has started firing workers across multiple government agencies, according to officials and unions.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, was terminating employees this week, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

The spokesperson declined to say how many workers are being fired.

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) terminated more than 1,000 employees, including some employees on probationary status, VA Secretary Doug Collins announced on Thursday.

And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began layoffs of probationary workers this week, unions said in a new lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s plan for terminations. The bureau, which did not return an inquiry, was ordered by a judge on Friday to stop the terminations.

President Donald Trump, in a Feb. 11 executive order, directed agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force” and “separate from Federal service temporary employees and reemployed annuitants working in areas that will likely be subject” to the reductions. He said the moves would eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity.”

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in January directed agencies to provide it with a list of probationary employees and to determine whether any of the workers should be retained. OPM officials met with officials from other agencies on Thursday and advised them to lay off probationary employees, a source familiar with the meetings told The Epoch Times.

OPM has also itself terminated all probationary staffers, the source said.

The HHS spokesperson said the department “is following the Administration’s guidance and taking action to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government.”

“This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard,” the spokesperson said.

Some other agencies declined to say whether they are laying off workers, including the U.S. Department of Education, which Trump has said he wants to shut down.

Critics lambasted the terminations.

“Agencies have spent years recruiting and developing the next generation of public servants. By firing them en masse, this administration is throwing away the very talent that agencies need to function effectively in the years ahead,” Everett Kelley,  president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.

But some said the terminations were needed.

“I trust that my friend Secretary Collins is doing the right thing for veterans and taxpayers to effectively right size and reorganize the agency to work better for the men and women it serves,” Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said in a statement.

The cuts are being implemented as the Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk, assists Trump with an effort to reduce the size of the government. Trump’s order directed agency heads to work closely with Musk’s team.

The Trump administration, shortly after Trump took office, launched a buyout program that offered government employees the opportunity to remain employed through Sept. 30 but not have to work. Officials said employees who did not take the offer must return to the office five days a week and that most agencies would likely be downsized.

The deadline to accept the offer was Feb. 12. About 75,000 workers took buyouts, according to the White House.

A federal judge that had extended the deadline ruled on Wednesday that the program could proceed, finding that unions that challenged the program did not show standing.

In the new suit, also filed in U.S. court in Washington, unions alleged that Trump’s order directing agencies to reduce their workforces violates federal law. They also challenged the buyout program.

The suit asks the court to enter a ruling declaring illegal “the mass firing of nonessential, probationary, and other employees,” enjoining the government from expanding the buyout program and complying with the law with the reduction plans.

“The Trump Administration’s executive actions to gut the federal workforce are not only illegal, but will also have damaging consequences for federal employees and the public services they provide,” Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, one of the unions, said in a statement.

“The courts must intervene and hold this Administration accountable for violating federal laws before it is too late.”

According to the unions, large percentages of many agencies are made up of employees who were deemed nonessential during the last government shutdown, including more than half of the IRS workforce. The unions estimated that there are about 220,000 probationary employees in the federal government, which has more than 2 million workers.