Trump administration plans to reclassify 50,000 federal workers, making them easier to fire
A commuter near the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station in Washington
By Tami Luhby, CNN
(CNN) — In its latest effort to weaken the federal workforce, the Trump administration issued a rule on Thursday that would shift an estimated 50,000 senior career staffers into a new category that would make them easier to fire.
The controversial rule allows agencies to reclassify federal employees involved in policy into at-will positions that don’t provide the same job protections that other career workers have.
It will affect an estimated 2% of the federal workforce.
The Trump administration made it clear in the rule why it created the new category – called Schedule Policy/Career.
“Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct,” it said. The new category “will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives.”
The rule stems from an executive order President Donald Trump signed his first day in office last year.
It revives a similar executive order that Trump signed shortly before the 2020 election that created a category for federal employees involved in policy, known as Schedule F. Former President Joe Biden quickly reversed that earlier order and finalized a new rule in 2024 that further bolstered protections for career federal workers.
The new rule, which rescinds the 2024 rule, quickly drew promises of a lawsuit from a coalition of more than 30 unions, advocacy groups and others, which had already sued over the 2025 executive order.
The measure “allows the government to bypass existing civil service laws, strips employees of earned protections, and opens the door to politically motivated firings and hirings, which have already occurred since President Trump took office,” Democracy Forward, which is representing the organizations, said in a statement.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the rule being issued.
The-CNN-Wire
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