A new rule from the Trump administration could make it easier to dismiss senior government workers
US federal employment levels already hit a 12-year low in October.
The government is carving out a new job category for high-ranking federal employees that could make it easier for them to dismiss about 50,000 workers, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
Fed head dread
A rule issued by the US Office of Personnel Management last Thursday created a new category for senior career officials whose work is policy determining, making, or advocating in nature. Those falling into this category will be made exempt from long-standing job protection nets that allowed employees to appeal against firing or disciplinary actions.
That’s the latest bad news for the federal workforce, which had already shrunk rapidly last year. In October, the government’s employment levels fell to 2.73 million, the lowest point since July 2014. That was down 179,000 from September, the largest month-over-month drop since 1995, per data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The BLS detailed that the decline included employees who “accepted a deferred resignation offer” and finally “came off federal payrolls.” This means that the October slump reflects those affected by the extensive layoffs under DOGE (which disbanded around early November), as well as workers dismissed during the government shutdown (which ended November 14) who were still considered employed while furloughed.
Even so, preliminary figures for November and December seem to suggest that headcount may now have stabilized at ~2.74 million across both months... though legal battles and federal spending concerns are still trailing the biggest year of overhaul the federal workforce has seen to date.
