Since President Donald Trump began his second term last month, he has focused on dramatically reducing the federal workforce at a breakneck pace.
From dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development to offering a mass deferred resignation plan, Trump’s Republican administration has released executive orders and memos aimed at substantially reshaping the size of government and where its employees work.
Here’s what to know about the federal workforce, its job protections and the process of cutting back on its ranks.
How big is the federal workforce, and where are workers located?
The civilian federal workforce, not including military personnel and postal workers, comprises about 2.4 million people.
While a chunk of federal workers, about 20%, are in Washington, D.C., and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, more than 80% are distributed outside the region.
What’s the difference between civil servants and political appointees?
Civil servants are the vast majority of federal workers. They’re generally hired through an application process and have strong protections once in their positions.
Political appointees, who number roughly 4,000, serve at the discretion of the president and can be dismissed at will by the chief executive.
“Civil servants tend to be in their jobs as careers, some of them for decades,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in President Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration when about 426,000 federal jobs were cut over more than eight years in a deliberative effort aimed at reinventing government.
How does firing work in the federal government?
It’s not easy to fire the vast majority of federal workers — they have considerable job security with a long legal history.
Federal employees who are not political appointees have strong protections designed to prevent political whims from clearing out the workforce. The protections have grown over time, under leadership of both major political parties.
“The president definitely has his work cut out for him,” said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
Federal workers are entitled to due process, which means they can challenge disciplinary actions through a formal process. They have to be notified of the allegations against them and allowed to respond and present their side.
“You have to build a record to fire somebody, and that doesn’t often happen,” Kamarck said.
How did federal workforce protections come about?
Federal employee protections started as a reform to the chaos caused by the 19th-century spoils system, in which federal jobs were awarded to a president’s loyalists. It led to incompetence and corruption as well as massive turnover with new administrations that proved disruptive and prevented continuity of expertise.
In 1881, President James Garfield was shot and killed by a man who believed Garfield owed him a job after campaigning for him. That led to the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, which created a merit-based system for hiring federal employees.
In 1978, Congress passed the Civil Service Reform Act, to shield the merit system with enforceable rights so that most federal workers can be fired only for a legitimate reason.
“The idea is that we’re not going to get the best people if their jobs are completely insecure and if they’re going to lose their job every time a new party takes power, so to encourage quality people to apply for government service, we provide some security,” said David Super, a professor who specializes in administrative law at Georgetown Law.
No other U.S. leader has attempted sweeping and dramatic cuts like those Trump wants, said Max Stier, president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on improving government.
“There’s nothing in our history that has ever approximated what we’re seeing right now,” Stier said.
How do unions work for federal employees?
Federal workers have union representation, but, unlike those of many industries, they do not have the power to strike. Federal workers also can’t bargain over pay, because salaries are set in law.
Federal unions can bargain over working conditions and basic protections for their members. Recently, unions have battled over remote working conditions, which they’ve successfully bargained for in the past and Trump is working to sharply reduce.
“There also are some limits about what they can bargain over, so, for example, they can’t bargain over what the policy of their agency is,” Super said. “That’s a matter for the political process to work out, but they can bargain for things that affect workers on their jobs and their well-being.”
What happens during a federal employee’s probation period?
Federal employees have varying probationary periods, often a year or two, when they carry out tasks under a supervisor, who evaluates whether the worker is doing the job successfully. If not, workers can be dismissed; if so, they are brought on as full-time employees with protections.
Employees on probation don’t have the same appeal rights — it’s an easier process to dismiss them.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Perrone contributed to this report.
