10,000 federal workers laid off amid Donald Trump & Elon Musk’s push to reshape agencies
The campaign led by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to reduce the size of the US bureaucracy resulted in the termination of more than 9,500 federal workers on Friday. The affected employees managed tasks such as federal land administration and veterans’ care.
Workers at the departments of interior, energy, veterans affairs, agriculture, and health and human services were among those dismissed. The job cuts have primarily targeted probationary employees in their first year, who have fewer employment protections.
Layoffs cascaded through the federal government Thursday after its human resources division advised agencies to terminate most of an estimated 200,000 workers on probation, a sharp escalation in the Trump administration’s drive to overhaul and shrink the federal workforce.
Some agencies have been largely shut down, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent watchdog. Workers on fixed-term contracts were also affected by the cuts.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is expected to lay off thousands of employees next week, news agency Reuters reported, quoting sources.
The job cuts, first reported by Reuters and other media outlets, follow an earlier buyout offer extended by Trump and Musk. Around 75,000 federal workers have voluntarily accepted the buyout, according to the White House. This accounts for about 3 per cent of the 2.3 million civilian federal workforce.
Trump has said the federal government is too large and that significant amounts of money are lost due to waste and fraud. The federal government currently has a $36 trillion debt and recorded a $1.8 trillion deficit last year. While there is general agreement on the need for reform, congressional Democrats have argued that Trump is overstepping the legislature’s authority on federal spending. Most Republican lawmakers, who hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, have supported the changes.
Critics have raised concerns over Musk’s role in the process. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent dismissed these concerns, saying, “These are serious people, and they’re going from agency to agency, doing an audit, looking for best practices,” in an interview with Fox Business Network.
