Trump signs order to make it easier to fire senior federal workers

Donald Trump has signed an executive order making it easier to fire thousands of the best-paid workers in the US government aspart of a broader drive by his administration to overhaul the federal workforce.

The order, released by the White House and the office of personnel management (OPM) on Wednesday, strips job protections from a mostly senior group of federal workers – about 8,000 employees – earning up to almost $200,000 a year, and who are deemed to be “influencing” government policy.

In a call previewing the move, Scott Kupor, director of the OPM, which oversees the government’s human resources policies, said the administration needs to employ people willing and able to carry out orders to achieve the administration’s policy priorities.

“You can have any political views, but if you allow those views to basically interfere with your willingness to actually carry out lawful orders and policy directives with the administration, then this provides a mechanism obviously for people in those agencies to be able to be removed effectively at will,” he said.

About 348,000 employees, over 11% of its overall workforce, have left the federal government since October 2024.

The latest order shows Trump is persisting in his efforts to discipline and fire career employees whom he sees as undermining his political goals, a year after billionaire Elon Musk left his post overseeing an effort to slash government spending and payrolls.

Trump believes his agenda was hampered by career federal workers who opposed his policies during his first term.

During Trump’s first term, his administration attempted to reclassify federal employees to “at will” under schedule F, but the rule was rescinded by the Biden administration before it took full effect.

Labor union leaders have argued the reclassification serves as a step backward to the 19th-century spoils system, where jobs were given to loyalists rather than based on merit.

The number of workers affected by the order is well below a ceiling estimate of up to 50,000 who could have been subject to new rules. Senior administration officials on the call said Trump could expand the grouping but had no immediate plans to do so.

“The Trump-Vance administration’s attempts to dismantle civil service protections would make it easier to purge experienced public servants,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, in a statement on the executive order. “When government experts can be fired without cause, it’s not just federal workers who are harmed – it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”

Democracy Forward is representing several federal worker unions and their allies in a lawsuit, filed in January, to strip civil service protection from thousands more workers. Federal judges paused the litigation while the Trump administration finalized changes.

“This is a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a statement on the executive order.

“Thousands of employees who were hired under the nonpartisan, professional civil service will be converted to a new hiring schedule where they can be fired ‘at will’ by political appointees or other overseers with essentially no procedural or appeal safeguards that have long protected the integrity of government operations.”

Reuters contributed reporting