This is a developing story.
A mass firing of probationary federal government employees has been ordered by the Trump administration, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers including 3,400 with the U.S. Forest Service — nearly 10% of its workforce — who are being terminated, according to official statements and published reports.
The firings ordered Thursday and Friday at multiple agencies are part of an effort by President Donald Trump at the onset of his second term to drastically downsize government. Probationary employees are typically those hired within the past year or two, meaning they don’t have full civil service protections of permanent federal workers, according to Government Executive.
Reuters reported there are about 280,000 civilian government workers hired within the past two years ago, most of whom are still on probation.
“The U.S. Forest Service will fire roughly 3,400 federal employees across every level of the agency beginning Thursday,” Politico reported Thursday, noting the agency currently has about 35,000 employees. Public safety employees — including firefighters with the Forest Service — are being exempted from the probationary downsizing process.
A U.S. Forest Service office sign in Juneau on Feb. 14, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
A 50% reduction in staff is planned at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, with HUD Secretary Scott Turner stating a task force will also study ways to make large spending cuts.
“We will be very detailed and deliberate about every dollar spent in serving tribal, rural and urban communities across America,” Turner said in a video posted on X. “With President Trump’s leadership business as usual, the status quo, is no longer the posture that we will take, and with the help of DOGE we will identify and eliminate all waste fraud and abuse.”
About 10% of the workforce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, totaling about 1,300 employees, also are being fired, the Associated Press reported Friday.
Among the other targeted agencies are the Department of Education, Small Business Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and General Services Administration, according to Reuters. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced it had terminated more than 1,000 employees effective immediately.
“The dismissals announced today are part of a government-wide Trump Administration effort to make agencies more efficient, effective and responsive to the American People,” the department stated in a press release.
More than 1,100 probationary employees at the Environmental Protection Agency were advised last week they could be fired at any time.
Trump administration officials have been open about their intent for a wholesale downsizing of government employees, calling it an effort to find and eliminate wasteful and improper spending. Newly confirmed Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has stated “we want to put them in trauma.” Elon Musk, head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, said his goal is to “delete entire agencies.”
The U.S. Forest Service building in Juneau on Feb. 14, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Accusations the announced firings are illegal were made by union leaders and organizations representing federal employees.
“This administration has abused the probationary period to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a prepared statement. “These firings are not about poor performance – there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants. They are about power. They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.”
At least 14 states are plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging Trump illegally appointed Musk to a position with powers not authorized in the U.S. Constitution, including withholding funds for programs approved by Congress.
Musk also presided over a buyout offer to federal employees that would pay them through the end of September, which a judge on Wednesday allowed to proceed following a legal challenge. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday about 77,000 workers representing nearly 4% of federal employees who received the offer accepted it by a Wednesday evening deadline.
”Cutting government personnel by one-fourth would reduce federal spending by about 1 percent,” the Washington Post reported Thursday evening.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
The Theodore Roosevelt Office Building in Washington, home of the Office of Personnel Management, on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. The Office of Personnel Management, the agency that manages the federal civilian work force and is coordinating an effort by the Trump administration to drastically reduce the size of the federal work force, laid off dozens of employees on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, according to people familiar with the move. (Valerie Plesch/The New York Times)
