The shrinking of the federal workforce has taken place in several overlapping stages.
Schedule F On January 28, 2025, Trump issued an executive order to strip legal protections "from political firings" for thousands of federal employees. Ezell told agencies to tell the fired employees that their performance was inadequate, and that they needed to cite no evidence. Depending on the agency, employees were given notices that read that either the agency "no longer has a need for your services," or it had "determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department's current needs." Even though a cause was alleged poor performance, some employees had either received the maximum possible rating or had not had their performance reviewed. They said the agencies "should focus on employees whose jobs are not required in statute and who face furloughs in government shutdowns—typically around one-third of the federal workforce, or 700,000 employees." In May, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily pausing the RIF actions across major agencies, calling into question the legal authority of executive-implemented RIF orders. In July, Noah Peters argued in court that RIF plans should not be made public.
Rescissions Following the administration's contract rescission orders, more than 1 million federal workers lost their bargaining rights. In some cases, the Trump administration subsequently realized that it had laid off people in critical positions and needed to reinstate them, as with
Department of Agriculture employees engaged in efforts to combat the spread of the
H5N1 bird flu virus and
National Nuclear Security Administration employees. Since former federal employees no longer had access to their government email accounts, supervisors were sometimes uncertain how to contact them. The
Food and Drug Administration rehired some staff responsible for reviewing medical devices and food safely. Hours after laying off 950
Indian Health Service employees on February 14,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, reinstated them.
Litigation Legal analysts described such firings as setting up
Supreme Court cases that could expand his power over independent executive branch agencies that Congress set up to be insulated from presidential control based on a maximalist interpretation of the
unitary executive theory. His actions were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, and with the intent of replacing employees with workers more aligned with his agenda. Trump criticized and fired officials who reported facts, statistics, and analysis that went against his opinions, and ordered them removed or redone to suit his preferences. In a peer-reviewed journal article,
Donald Moynihan described the mass firings as an
anti-statist restructuring of American government centered around political loyalty. Lower courts froze the firings. However, on July 8, 2025, the Supreme Court overrode those orders, thereby allowing the workforce reductions to continue.
Politico described the cuts as the largest attempt to reorganize the federal government since the professionalization of the civil service. It described the court's order as marking "a major reversal in the pre-Trump conventional wisdom that federal workers enjoyed significant job protections" and that it would "allow Trump and future presidents going forward to use the threat of layoffs to pressure federal workers to carry out political appointees' orders, or to root out dissenters". On September 24, federal judge
Ana C. Reyes ruled that the administration unlawfully fired 17 inspectors general, but refused to reinstate them noting that Trump would simply re-fire them after providing a congressionally-mandated 30 days notice. The Supreme Court stayed the reinstatement of several Democratic members of federal agencies after their terminations were found to be illegal by federal judges, and signaled openness to overturning the 1935 case ''
Humphrey's Executor v. United States'' which prevented at-will firings at independent agencies to insulate them from political pressure. During the
2025 United States federal government shutdown, the Trump administration announced a new wave of 4,100 RIFs, triggering multiple lawsuits. Judge
Susan Illston temporarily blocked the firings, citing public statements by Vought and Trump that she said showed explicit political motives, such as Trump saying the cuts would only target "Democrat agencies". By October 25,
Politico described the layoffs as chaotic and reminiscent of DOGE, with hundreds employees being fired in error and several agencies pushing back on the amount of cuts sought by Vought. == Agencies ==