Trump administration begins sweeping layoffs with probationary workers, warns of larger cuts to come

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the nation’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. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees representing federal workers, said the administration “abused” the probation status of workers “to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office.” Thursday’s order was an expansion of previous directions from OPM, which told agencies earlier this week that probationary employees should be fired if they weren’t meeting high standards. Murray said in a statement that she heard from VA researchers in her state who were told to stop their research immediately, “not because their work isn’t desperately needed, but because Trump and Elon have decided to fire these researchers on a whim.” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 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. “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.