Trump admin eyes career officials after thousands of probation terminations

The US government is facing a generational realignment as President Donald Trump directs federal agencies to develop plans for eliminating employee positions and consolidating programmes.

Senior officials set the downsizing in motion on Wednesday with a memo that dramatically expands Trump's efforts to scale back a workforce. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now the Republican administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.

"We're cutting down the size of government. We have to," Trump said during the first Cabinet meeting of his second term. "We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job."

The ripple effects will be felt around the country. Roughly 80 percent of federal workers live outside the Washington area, and government services — patent approvals, food inspections, park maintenance and more — could be hindered depending on how cuts are handled.

Administration officials framed their effort as a cost-saving measure with a clear ideological goal.

"The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public," said the memo from Russell Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency.

"Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hard-working American citizens."

Vought was an author of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump's second term, and he has advocated for centralising power under the presidency and dismantling federal bureaucracy.

Resistance is expected

Labour unions, Democratic state leaders and other organisations have tried, with some success, to slow Trump down with litigation, while Republicans are growing more concerned about how a slash-and-burn strategy could affect their constituents.

Agencies are directed to submit by March 13 their plans for what is known as a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate the position altogether. The result could be extensive changes in how government functions.

No specific targets for cutbacks were included in the memo. However, as an example, Trump said the Environmental Protection Agency could reduce its staff by 65 percent.

More plans are due on April 14, when agencies are expected to outline how they will consolidate management, become more efficient and potentially relocate offices to parts of the country that are less expensive than Washington.

The memo said agencies have a September 30 deadline for implementation.