Anxious US federal workers are expected to suffer another round of layoffs on Friday as President Donald Trump and top adviser Elon Musk pursue a wholesale downsizing of the government.
Thousands of workers at government agencies have been fired so far this week. Most of them are recently hired employees still on probation at departments including Veterans Affairs, Education and the Small Business Administration.
Officials from the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees federal hiring, met agencies on Thursday, advising them to lay off their probationary employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.
About 280,000 of the 2.3 million-member civilian federal workforce were hired in the past two years, with most still on probation and easier to fire, according to government data.
Mr Trump and Tesla chief executive Mr Musk's overhaul of the federal government appeared to be widening as Musk aides arrived on Thursday at the federal tax-collecting agency, the Internal Revenue Service, and US embassies were told to prepare for staff cuts.
The US President says the federal government is too bloated and too much money is lost to waste and fraud. The federal government has about $36 trillion of debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for government reform.
His fellow Republicans, who control majorities in both chambers of the US Congress, have broadly supported the moves, even as Democrats say Mr Trump is encroaching on the legislature's constitutional authority over federal spending.
Critics have also questioned the blunt force approach of Mr Musk, the world's richest person, who has gained extraordinary influence within Mr Trump's presidency.
Firings at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, however, are going beyond probationary employees, sources said, with some employees on fixed-term contracts being axed.
Mr Trump and Mr Musk have said they are committed to reducing the size of federal bureaucracy, which they charge is unaccountable to the White House and blame for actively stalling Mr Trump’s policy initiatives.
They have already offered some federal workers an incentive package to quit voluntarily, tried to gut civil-service protections for career employees, frozen most of US foreign aid and have attempted to shut some government agencies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau almost entirely.
About 75,000 workers have signed up for the redundancies, the White House said. That is equal to 3 per cent of the civilian workforce.
Unions representing federal workers have already sued to block the buyout plan and one of them, the American Federation of Government Workers, said on Thursday it will fight the mass firings of probationary employees.
“This is highly unusual to terminate all probationary employees and is being done in a highly unusual manner. We are reviewing all legal options,” said J Ward Morrow, assistant general counsel for the federation.
A suit filed on Thursday by the attorneys general of 14 states alleges Mr Musk was illegally appointed by Mr Trump and seeks an order barring him from taking any further government action.
Along with those court challenges, Mr Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, have been hit with privacy lawsuits over their access to government computer systems.
Two federal judges overseeing privacy cases against Doge will consider on Friday whether Mr Musk’s team will have access to Treasury Department payment systems and potentially sensitive data at US health, consumer protection and labour agencies.
Mr Musk has sent Doge members into at least 16 government agencies, where they have gained access to computer systems with sensitive personnel and financial information, and sent workers home.
Doge did not respond to a request for comment on the widespread layoffs, but a representative for the Office of Personnel Management said the firings were in line with new government policy.
