Probationary Employees
Which government employees are probationary?
A probationary employee is someone who was recently hired by a federal agency. A person who has been a long-serving employee but moved to a new position is also often considered in a probationary position.
The period is seen as a trial phase, or as Attorney Justin Schnitzer calls it an “extended job interview where you’re not just talking the talk but walking the walk every single day.”
“Far from being a mere bureaucratic hurdle, the probationary period serves as a critical filter in the federal hiring process,” Schnitzer wrote on the Fedelaw blog. It’s the government’s way of ensuring that only the cream of the crop makes it into the ranks of career civil servants.”
How long the probation period lasts depends upon the federal agency. Typically, however, they are about one or two years.
Probationary employees are able to be fired much easier than tenured employees based on performance or conduct. Probationary employees, however, are still entitled to a written letter or termination notice with a reason for the firing.
Bottom Line: Like any efficient company, employees new to a positing, either through new hire or promotion, are subject to close scrutiny during their probationary period to ensure they are capable in their new position
It should also be noted that probationary employees are not the same as temporary employees.
Why is Musk targeting probationary employees?
Because they are the easiest to fire. It has no relationship to individual productivity, redundentcy, or competence
While on probation, a federal employee can essentially be fired at will, although the person’s superiors need to show that the employee’s “work performance or conduct fails during this period to demonstrate his fitness or his qualifications for continued employment.” (Many termination notices included language about the employee’s supposedly inadequate performance, typically without evidence.)
After employees have completed their probation period, they gain more rights to appeal a termination to the Merit Systems Protection Board. Under those rules for due process, the agency must show that an employee wasn’t doing the job, or that the job was no longer necessary.
SOURCE https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/business/economy/probationary-federal-workers-trump-cuts.html
What kind of cuts are being made?
Department of Veterans Affairs
On Feb. 13, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees who had served for less than two years. According to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that included researchers working on cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure.
Defense Department
The Defense Department said Friday that it’s cutting 5,400 probationary workers starting next week and will put a hiring freeze in place. Uniformed military personnel are exempt.
Energy Department
Hundreds of federal employees tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs were laid off on Feb. 13, but that move was largely rescinded hours later, according to a memo obtained by the AP. Three U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation said as many as 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were ousted, with some losing access to email before they had learned they were fired.
Department of Health and Human Services
The jobs of more than 5,000 probationary employees are on the line at the Department of Health and Human Services.
On Feb. 14, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told they were losing nearly 1,300 probationary employees — about one-tenth of the agency’s workforce.
Probationary employees were also fired at public health agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, but HHS has not released a final number.
Department of Homeland Security
At the Department of Homeland Security, 405 people who were identified as probationary staffers were let go, the agency said.
About half of those cuts came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Those cuts were separate from the firings of the agency’s chief financial officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist, who were terminated Feb. 11 over payments to reimburse New York City for hotel costs for migrants.
A little over 130 were let go at the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure, including the federal efforts to secure election systems.
Internal Revenue Service
The IRS will lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season, according to two people familiar with the agency’s plans who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
National Park Service
The administration has fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and perform other functions.
The firings were not publicly announced but were confirmed by Democratic senators and House members. Adding to the confusion, the park service now says it is reinstating about 5,000 seasonal jobs that were initially rescinded last month.
Seasonal workers are routinely added during the warm-weather months to serve more than 325 million annual visitors who descend on the nation’s 428 parks, historic sites and other attractions.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The administration has ordered the CFPB — created after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal — to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting it down.
Agriculture Department
A spokesman for the department, which oversees the Forest Service, said Rollins supports Trump’s directive to eliminate inefficiencies by firing about 2,000 “probationary, non-firefighting employees.”
On Feb. 19, the department scrambled to rehire several workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years, but who were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on Musk’s recommendations.
Foreign aid and development
In his first week in office, Trump issued an executive order directing a 90-day hold on most of the foreign assistance USAID disbursed through the State Department.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued several specific exemptions, including emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt, from the freeze on foreign assistance. But thousands of U.S.-funded humanitarian, development and security programs worldwide stopped work or prepared to do so.
Without the money to pay staff, aid organizations, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, began laying off hundreds of employees. Crews removed the agency’s signage from its Washington headquarters.
Federal grants and loans
The White House said last month it was pausing federal grants and loans as the Republican administration began an across-the-board ideological review.
The freeze could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in healthcare research, education programs and other initiatives. Even grants that have been awarded but not spent are supposed to be halted.
Inspectors general
Each of the federal government’s largest agencies has its own independent inspector general who is supposed to conduct objective audits, prevent fraud and promote efficiency.
Trump has fired at least 17 of them, including watchdogs he appointed in his first term. At least one Democratic appointee, Michael Horowitz at the Justice Department, was spared.
Department of Justice
The Justice Department said last month that it had fired more than a dozen employees who worked on criminal prosecutions of Trump by special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
By tradition, career employees remain with the department across presidential administrations regardless of their involvement in sensitive investigations.
State Department
A large number of senior career diplomats who served in politically appointed leadership positions — as well as in lower-level posts at the State Department — left their jobs at the demand of the new administration.
Cuts by agency
No official tally of cuts to the federal workforce exists. Here are the layoffs, buyouts taken, and planned reductions, by agency, that The New York Times has confirmed through verified sources within federal agencies, court filings, and press and public statements.
Based on the latest available information, reductions could affect at least 12 percent of the 2.4 million civilian federal workers — a number that could grow as more of the agencies’ plans come into focus.
SOURCE https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/28/us/politics/trump-doge-federal-job-cuts.html
