Trump seeks federal workforce overhaul

7 ways president has already made changes

By: Erin Mansfield
and Sarah D. Wire
USA Today

..... President Donald Trump has spent the first two months of his administration dramatically overhauling the federal workforce, and instituting new rules and personnel changes hat would give him more control over agency employees.
..... Guided by white House adviser Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency aides, the Trump administration has already laid off tens of thousands of federal workers across the country including employees of the national Park Service, Department of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Education Department, internal Revenue Service and the National Institutes of Heath.
..... As the federal layoffs accelerate, here are some ways Trump and DOGE have already changed the federal workforce:

Buyout offers

..... About 75,000 federal employees - or 3.3% of the federal government's 2.3 million workers - accepted Trump's buyout offer, which was made soon after he took office.
..... The figure represents less than the 5% to 10% of the workforce that the White House projected would accept the buyouts.
..... Trump's offer promised eight months of pay and benefits to federal employees through September [2025] in exchange for their immediate resignation. Democrats and unions warned federal workers not to trust the deal.

Firing probationary workers

..... Tens of thousands of probationary workers across the government were laid off starting in early February. [2025] Many received the same letter saying they were being fired for poor or unsatisfactory performance despite receiving glowing performance reviews.
..... A probationary employee normally fits into one of thee categories: a new hire, an existing employee who switched federal departments or someone who was promoted.
..... Judge William Alsup of the U.S. district Court of the Northern California District ruled the Office of Personnel management lacked authority and acted out of bounds by ordering agencies to fire employees, The case is ongoing.

More firing power over employees

..... The Trump administration has created a new system for performance reviews for high-level managers with a classification known as Senior Executive Service. At Trump's directive, OPM cerated a system that makes it harder to get a perfect performance review, and requires these executives to be fired or reassigned if they score poorly.
..... OPM said in a memo that the employees don't have to "personally or politically" agree with the administration's polices, but "are required to faithfully implement administration polices to the best of their ability. Failure to do so will be grounds for dismissal."

Limiting union contracts

..... In a January 31 [2025] memo to agency heads, Trump said his administration would not honor the contracts that unions negotiated with President Joe Biden;s administration in the last 30 days of his tenure, arguing that they were designed to bind his ability to govern.
..... The Department of Homeland Security announced March 7 [2025] that it would end collective bargaining for47,000 employees of the agency that handles airport security. Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, slammed the move as "merely a pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union."

Return to office mandates

..... The day he took office, Trump signed an executive order directing department heads to require federal employees to "return to in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time bases" immediately, with exemptions allowed, officials ended COVID-19 ere flexibilities that allowed about half of civilian federal employees to work from home at least some of the time.
..... Before the order, 54% of federal employees performed tier work duties fully on-site, according to an August [2024] Office of Management and Budget study that examined the majority of workers.
..... Trump has said he believes federal employees working from home aren't spending the whole day working.

Hiring freeze

..... On his first day in office, Trump also ordered a freeze on hiring new federal employees until April 19. [2025] The order exempted military personnel and positions related to mitigation enforcement, national security or public safety.
..... The freeze has meant an end to seasonal hiring, including thousands of wildfire fighters and National park Service summer workers.

Firing heads of key labor boards

..... In early February, [2025] Trump fired three key people in charge of the agencies that help protect federal workers form unlawful practices. All were nominated by Biden and confirmed by the Senate, and all had job protections that prevented presidents from firing them except in certain situations. But Trump fired them anyway, and his administration has gone to court to argue that firing them is his right as the head of the executive branch and that laws saying otherwise are unconstitutional.
..... One of the firings was Hampton Dellinger, who ran the Office of Special Counsel and successfully got the Merit Systems Protection board, which acts as a court in cases involving federal employees to temporarily pause the firings of thousands of workers. A court upheld his firing this month. [03/2025]
..... Another was Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Stems Protection Board. A court has temporarily reinstated her.
..... The third was Susan Grundmann, the head of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which handles disputes between unions and the government. A court has order her to be reinstated.

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