Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), a group that defends government workers, said the agriculture department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service would be hit especially hard by laying off probationary employees because it has trouble recruiting inspectors required to be present at all times at most slaughterhouses.
The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the country’s largest employer, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection – potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.
When the Congressional Budget Office looked at the issue, it found the government spent $271bn annually compensating civilian federal workers, with about 60% of that total going to workers employed by the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.
The decision on probationary workers, who generally have less than a year on the job, came from the office of personnel management (OPM), which serves as a human resources department for the federal government.
At least 39 were fired from the education department on Wednesday, according to a union that represents agency workers, including civil rights workers, special education specialists and student aid officials.
