Trump administration fires thousands of federal workers as purge deepens
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The Trump administration over the past two days has fired thousands of federal workers with jobs reportedly ranging from wildfire prevention to medical research.
Why it matters: A mass firing on this scale is unprecedented — and will likely vastly reshape the way the federal government works, or doesn't, for many years to come.
State of play: The White House has not released a tally yet of how many employees were fired and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Axios.
- Agencies have been given until 8pm on Tuesday to fire probationary workers, according to a source familiar with the process, though they can make case-by-case exceptions.
- There are around 200,000 probationary workers — those who have been at agencies for less than one to two years — across the government.
- The firings come after around 75,000 workers accepted a deferred resignation offer engineered by Elon Musk's DOGE.
What's happening: Many of the firings are happening over email.
- Those being let go are mostly probationary workers or "term-limited" folks with set timeframes. But some more permanent civil servants are also out.
- Employees inside the IRS, CFPB and USDA told Axios on Friday either that they'd been fired, or colleagues had received termination notices and that more were expected.
The intrigue: All 18 career communications staffers at The Office of Personnel Management, effectively the government's HR department, were fired, an official at the American Federation of Government Employees told Axios. A source familiar with the decision also confirmed.
- Their positions were eliminated permanently, effectively wiping out the group's public relations team, similar to what Musk did at Twitter when he took over.
- OPM also fired dozens of its probationary employees Thursday afternoon on a group video call at around 2:30 p.m., the union official said.
- They were told they had to leave the building by 3, per the union official.
Inside the Department of Energy probationary employees received notices, viewed by Axios, that they were being let go on Thursday.
- "Per OPM instructions, DOE finds that your further employment would not be in the public interest," say the notices, viewed by Axios. "For this reason, you are being removed from your position with DOE and the federal civil service effective today," per the notices.
The Veterans Affairs department dismissed more than 1,000 employees on Thursday, the agency confirmed.
- CNN also reported 3,400 dismissals at the U.S. Forest Service and 2,000 at the Energy Department.
- STAT reported 5,200 workers inside the Department of Health and Human Services are also to be targeted for firings.
What they're saying: A spokesperson from OPM described the probationary period as "a continuation of the job application process" in a statement to Axios and said agencies were "taking independent action in light of the recent hiring freeze and in support of the President's broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government."
- A source familiar said OPM's guidance to agencies was that probationary employees should be fired, with only "mission critical" exceptions.
- "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," said a statement from Everett Kelley, president of AFGE, a union that represents federal workers.
What to watch: The firings are already being challenged in court, and it's likely more suits are on the horizon.
