Workers all over the country responded with anger and confusion Friday as they grappled with the Trump administration 's aggressive effort to shrink the size of the federal workforce by ordering agencies to lay off probationary employees who have yet to qualify for civil service protections. While much of the administration’s attention was focused on disrupting bureaucracy in Washington, the broad-based effort to slash the government workforce was impacting a far wider swath of workers. As layoff notices began to go out agency by agency this week, federal employees from Michigan to Florida were left reeling from being told that their services were no longer needed.
Many of those impacted say they had already accepted the administration's deferred resignation offer, under which they were supposed to be paid until Sept. 30 if they agreed to quit. That left some wondering how many others who signed will nonetheless be fired. “This has been slash and burn,” said Nicholas Detter, who had been working in Kansas as a natural resource specialist, helping farmers reduce soil and water erosion, until he was fired by email late Thursday night. He said there seemed to be little thought about how employees and the farmers and ranchers he helped would be impacted.
“None of this has been done thoughtfully or carefully,” he said. The White House and Office of Personnel Management, which serves as a human resources department for the federal government, declined to say Friday how many probationary workers, who generally have less than a year on the job, have so far been dismissed. According to government data maintained by OPM, 220,000 workers had less than a year on the job as of March 2024.
The White House also did not respond to questions about why people who had accepted the buyout had received layoff notices. OMP has given agencies until 8 p.m. Tuesday to issue layoff notices, according to a person familiar with the plan who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The probationary layoffs are the latest salvo in the new administration's sweeping efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, which are being led by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. Trump, in an executive order Tuesday, told agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions" after their initial attempt to downsize the workforce — the voluntary buyout - was accepted by only 75,000 workers.
The layoffs begin. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, the firings have included researchers working on cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, said Thursday. Dozens were fired from the Education Department, including special education specialists and student aid officials, according to a union that represents agency workers. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1,300 probationary employees — roughly one-tenth of the agency’s total workforce — are being forced out. The Atlanta-based agency’s leadership was notified of the decision Friday morning, according to a federal official who was at the meeting and was not authorized to discuss the orders and requested anonymity.
The new Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Friday that her agency had invited Musk’s DOGE team with “open arms” and that layoffs “will be forthcoming.”. “Clearly, it’s a new day,” Rollins said at the White House. “I think the American people spoke on November 5th, that they believe that government was too big.". Workers impacted. Andrew Lennox, a 10-year Marine veteran, was part of a new supervisor training program at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He said he received an email “out of the blue” Thursday evening informing him that he was being terminated.
“In order to help veterans, you just fired a veteran,” said Lennox, 35, a former USMC infantryman who was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Lennox had been working as an administrative officer at the VA since mid-December and said he “would love nothing more” than to keep working. “This is my family, and I would like to do this forever,” he said. In a post on its website, the VA announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees, saying the personnel moves “will save the department more than $98 million per year” and be better equipped to help vets.
“I was like: ‘What about this one?’” Lennox said. David Rice, a disabled Army paratrooper who has been on probation since joining the U.S. Department of Energy in September, also learned Thursday night that he had lost his job. Rice, who has been working as a foreign affairs specialist on health matters relating to radiation exposure, said he’d been led to believe that his job would likely be safe. But on Thursday night, when he logged into his computer for a meeting with Japanese representatives, he saw an email saying he’d been fired.
