Left in limbo: How federal workers still on the job are coping with chaos
By Eric Bradner, Tami Luhby, Sarah Owermohle, Sunlen Serfaty, Brian Todd and Marshall Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — More than 100 days into Donald Trump’s presidency, many federal workers have decided to do something that was unthinkable on inauguration day: quit their jobs.
As the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency cuts budgets and headcounts across the government, a workforce used to job security is now beset by low morale and deep uncertainty. Among those who’ve been fired or quit are tens of thousands of highly trained experts and specialists, draining the agencies of their knowledge base.
Deeper cuts are likely to come.
Weeks away from hurricane season, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is set to lose roughly 1,000 workers – 20% of its full-time staff – who took a buyout offer. About 25% of Internal Revenue Service workers, roughly 22,000 people, are planning to take buyouts. The Environmental Protection Agency this week made another offer to all employees – open through May 5 – to quit now and be paid through the end of September.
Those left behind now face a highly uncertain future in which a job that once seemed secure could disappear in a flash, leaving them wondering if it makes any sense to stay.
Many of the more than a dozen workers who spoke to CNN describe a culture of fear that now permeates.
Just last week, some agencies moved to end flexible work schedules. Some workers’ lives are being uprooted by mandatory reassignments and relocations. Many feel they are being pitted against each other because rules around seniority and status mean some staffers could still be displaced from their jobs by coworkers.
Some federal workers said normal activities – such as stepping away from their computers to collaborate in-person with other workers, or attending after-hours retirement parties – are being more closely scrutinized.
Shannon Walsh, a federal worker with the Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago, says that an email employees recently received informing them that their PIV card swipe data is being tracked felt threatening – causing paranoia and uncertainly over how their time is being truly monitored and for what reason.
“Confused. And afraid. It honestly makes me feel both those things but also angry because I feel that that is the point,” said Walsh, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704. “It makes me feel like we are being smoked out.”
Ellie Hagen, also an EPA employee in Chicago and a member of the local union, described a “very intense culture of fear” at work.
Hagen said an office “retirement” party to celebrate those who were terminated was canceled recently by management. Even though the party was to take place outside of work hours, there was worry it would appear they were being unproductive.
“People are afraid to do things that were once routine,” she said.
Still, many federal workers who spoke to CNN remain resolute and insist they aren’t leaving until they are given no choice.
Almost all federal workers in February were offered deferred resignation: quit now and be paid through the end of September. Since then, Trump-appointed agency heads have begun reducing their ranks through multiple efforts, including some that have offered their own buy-outs.
Those efforts have met legal challenges and political backlash from Democrats who are highlighting the implications of those cuts ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
‘I’m going out on my own terms’
One employee at the US Department of Agriculture who spoke to CNN said they recently decided to take the second deferred resignation offer in April after being terminated and then reinstated earlier this year, undermining their sense of job security.
“If I do this, I’m going out on my own terms. I’m choosing it,” the worker said, noting that they’ll be paid through September 30 under the program’s terms.
When the first buyout was offered earlier this year, the employee didn’t give it any thought. They wanted to continue working for USDA, and their boss told them they didn’t have anything to worry about. Two days later, they were terminated, along with tens of thousands of other probationary federal workers.
Even those who are staying face continued uncertainty as layoffs are implemented.
The IRS issued a memo last week telling its approximately 90,000 employees that it was withdrawing from an agreement that allowed employees to work a flexible schedule.
As part of a 2022 labor agreement, the IRS allowed employees to work some nine-hour days, so they could take a full typical workday off after they logged enough hours. The deal also allowed employees to pick their start time, giving them additional flexibility over their time.
Those deals were nixed by the IRS as part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to end collective bargaining for federal workers. It also came amid a Trump administration push to shrink the size of the workforce by offering time-limited buyouts in exchange for quitting.
“A lot of people are upset that this was not announced before the option to resign,” a Utah-based IRS employee told CNN. “Things are sure different around the office these days.”
At the Veterans Health Administration, a draft document from late March reviewed by CNN detailing its “reductions in force” effort laid out “a process where one employee may ‘bump’ another employee out of their position.”
It goes on to explain that employees would be organized based on factors including their tenure and status – such as whether they meet veterans’ preference status that helps military veterans get hired.
The document says: “If you ‘bump’ another employee, you would retain employment. You may be eligible for grade and/or pay retention. If another employee is ranked higher, you may be ‘bumped’ out of your role and released from employment.”
Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said on a call with reporters Friday that displacing other federal employees is typically part of federal reduction-in-force efforts, though he noted that no prior administration has conducted a reduction like this.
“If somebody’s been RIF’ed, they may have the opportunity of moving into another position where they have seniority that is specifically similar to the job that they had before,” Stier said. “They can, in effect, take that job from the incumbent that’s there and push that person out. That is part of the RIF procedure.”
The Office of Personnel Management regulations for RIFs include details about so-called bumping and retreating rights, which should apply to any agency conducting a reduction in force, said Jenny Mattingley, vice president for government affairs at the Partnership. However, it can take many months for agencies to properly categorize all the federal employees subject to the layoffs.
It’s “pretty complicated,” she added, noting that an employee’s appointment category (such as career staffer or probationary worker), length of service and performance are taken into account, in addition to veteran status.
National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald criticized the Trump administration’s “aggressive mismanagement” of the federal workforce.
“The exodus of talent and nonpartisan dedication to public service makes it harder for our federal agencies to accomplish the important missions assigned to them by Congress. And for those who stay on the job, this administration continues to unnerve them with unnecessary changes to their schedules, petty disruptions to their working lives, deep cuts to their operating budgets and threats to their careers,” Greenwald said in a statement.
Far-flung reassignments
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, roughly two dozen top officials placed on administration leave during the mass April 1 layoffs were given the option to be reassigned to the historically understaffed Indian Health Services.
Those officials – ranging from longtime lab researchers to regulatory and policy experts – received an email with five IHS sites, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, Billings, Montana, and Juneau, Alaska, asking them to rank their preferences.
They were given one day to decide.
At NIH, at least four institute directors, overseeing infectious diseases, minority health and disparities, pediatric disease and nursing research, were placed on administrative leave and given the IHS option.
“Things are broken and confused here,” said a remaining NIH employee. Nearly a month after the mass layoffs, “we’re still learning who is here and who is gone.”
The reassignments to Indian Health Service also angered tribal communities that are in dire need of physicians and nurses at understaffed, remote clinics – not longtime officials and researchers shunted away from their bureaucratic roles.
It was a “slap in the face,” said Liz Carr, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians who served as a senior IHS advisor during the Biden administration. “They are painting our communities as a relegation, a hellscape, a place of punishment for these people that want to provide services to HHS in other capacities.”
She added: “Our people deserve the best of the best, and so sending people to places they don’t want to be is not going to create adequate or beneficial health care.”
Most of the officials did not respond to the email and are still in limbo, according to three people familiar with the reorganization efforts. One CDC official responded with their preferences and has received no further communications since then, two of those people said.
“Administrative leave is a pretty big deal. It’s closely monitored, but there’s so much going on right now [that] I don’t even know if there’s enough people in HR to be processing putting people on administrative leave,” one former official said.
Overall, Department of Health and Human Services officials’ reorganization aimed to slash 20,000 jobs, consolidate programs, and shutter others. Several of the cuts, like a canceled program to study women’s health, brought controversy and HHS promises to reverse course.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. insisted soon after the mass layoffs that these things would happen with swift DOGE cuts. “The part of that, DOGE – we talked about this from the beginning – is we’re going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstalled because we’ll make mistakes,” he told reporters on April 3.
But the uncertainty has left remaining health agency employees “waiting for the next shoe to drop,” said one longtime health official who departed before the mass layoffs. “People are confused, frustrated, saddened, and worried about the future of public health. Is this just the first step?”
‘The patients are suffering’
Those workers say the cuts are leading to backlogs and fewer government employees handling the same amount of work.
One medical professional at the Department of Veterans Affairs now has to care for more patients – and ones with higher needs – because their colleague retired recently and a request to replace the person was denied.
“There’s no way I can spend as much time on care as my colleague was,” they told CNN. “So, the patients are suffering.”
Feeling spread very thin, the professional worries that they won’t be able to keep up the pace without burning out. They went into the medical field to help people but are upset that they can’t provide the type of care their patients need.
Despite all this, they are committed to sticking it out.
“I’m not leaving because I love working with veterans,” they said. “It feels like a sacred mission, not just a job.”
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