“The permanent staffers who are fired or taking the buyout include people who collect fees at park entrances, maintenance workers who clean park facilities and rangers who patrol the backcountry and rescue lost and injured hikers.
Adding to the operational chaos for Park Service supervisors, the Trump administration in January notified thousands of seasonal workers who staff America’s 433 national parks and historical sites during peak seasons that their job offers for the 2025 season had been “rescinded.” The move set off panic in the ranks of park employees, and threw into limbo the vacation plans of hundreds of millions of people who visit the parks each year.”
“More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.”
“DOGE deserves some credit for simply trying to map the federal government—a gargantuan endeavor that involves over 100 agencies, each a matryoshka doll of sub-agencies and offices. As former federal technology officer Marina Nitze wrote in Reason today, the amount of nonsensical rules, regulations, and turf battles means it’s a Sisyphean struggle to make even the most basic improvements to federal websites and tech systems.”
“Mass layoffs have begun, with most of the some 200,000 probationary employees expected to be terminated in the coming days, mostly from the departments of Energy and Veteran Affairs, but also some from the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture (specifically the Forest Service), and—ironically—the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which has been overseeing the layoffs.
Probationary employees tend to be workers who have only been in their jobs for a year or under (or two years in some cases). They have the fewest job protections so they tend to be the easiest to fire.
“These firings are not about poor performance—there is no evidence these employees were anything but dedicated public servants,” said government employee union president Everett Kelley in a statement. “They are about gutting the federal government, silencing workers, and forcing agencies into submission to a radical agenda that prioritizes cronyism over competence.””
…
“The OPM has apparently dispensed shifting guidance, reportedly telling agencies earlier this week that they should focus on terminating underperforming employees before later in the week shifting to a policy that all or most probationary employees should be dismissed.”
“Whether you’re hot or cold on DOGE’s government-slashing potential, everyone agrees it needs data to survive. Record access lawsuits might starve it of them.”
“The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the nation’s largest employer, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection — potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.
In addition, workers at some agencies were warned that large workplace cuts would be coming.
The decision on probationary workers, who generally have less than a year on the job, came from the Office of Personnel Management, which serves as a human resources department for the federal government. The notification was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.”
LC: Is firing people irrespective of the agency’s need for their skills faithfully executing the laws of the nation?