200,000 Layoffs
The culling within the federal government: Mass layoffs have begun, with most of the some 200,000 probationary employees expected to be terminated in the coming days, mostly from the departments of Energy and Veteran Affairs, but also some from the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture (specifically the Forest Service), and—ironically—the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which has been overseeing the layoffs.
Probationary employees tend to be workers who have only been in their jobs for a year or under (or two years in some cases). They have the fewest job protections so they tend to be the easiest to fire.
“These firings are not about poor performance—there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants,” said government employee union president Everett Kelley in a statement. “They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.” The last two weeks have seen online hysterics, protests outside of federal buildings, and lots of lawsuits filed or threatened by unions representing the employees.
The OPM has apparently dispensed shifting guidance, reportedly telling agencies earlier this week that they should focus on terminating underperforming employees before later in the week shifting to a policy that all or most probationary employees should be dismissed. Some of the agency’s own employees were allegedly dismissed via a Microsoft Teams call, per their union, the American Federation of Government Employees. Around 100 people were dismissed at once via that call, with their video and speaking capabilities muted, and were told to leave the building within the hour.
Meanwhile, roughly 77,000 workers have availed themselves of the buyouts offered to them. This is all, of course, part of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), helmed by Elon Musk, which is focused on trimming the federal bureaucracy down to size.
Though I’m supportive of DOGE, there is a certain haphazard nature to these firings that leaves me wondering if they’ll result in the desired outcome. For example, some 3,400 workers within the Forest Service were eliminated. But some of those workers were those who specifically work on wildfire management, per Politico, which seems useful, especially when specific states—LOOKING AT YOU, CALIFORNIA—have historically abdicated their responsibility to do so, and/or have vast swaths of federal land within their boundaries (in California, for example, 20 million acres are managed by the Forest Service). (To be fair to pretty boy Gov. Gavin Newsom, though it pains me to do so, California has upped its number of controlled burns in a major way over the last few years, recognizing the necessity of such management techniques.) Still, other laid-off employees were focused on trail improvements at hiking spots and watershed restoration, which seems like something that ought
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