Trump Administration Walks Back Firing Federal Workers After Ruling

 The Trump administration is walking back a directive ordering federal agencies to cut probationary employees after a judge last week ordered a pause to the mass terminations. 

The Office of Personnel Management issued revised guidance Tuesday that clarifies the administration is not directing agencies to terminate probationary workers, who are employees that have typically been in their current positions for less than one year. 

The change gives agencies the potential to re-hire workers who they cut in recent weeks, though it was unclear if thousands of workers who have already been dismissed would be reinstated. 

Agencies across the federal bureaucracy have slashed jobs for probationary workers and other employees in recent weeks as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort has sought to downsize the workforce and slash spending.

“OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees,” according to the updated memo. “Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions.” 

That memo “clarifies and confirms that OPM has not directed, and is not directing, your agency to take specific performance-based actions against probationary employees,” according to guidance sent to federal human resources offices.

The reversal after the court ruling underscores the tumult playing out across agencies as DOGE, an office within the White House, has sought to impose draconian worker cuts. 

Musk and his DOGE team have moved so quickly through agencies that some workers were terminated, only to be brought back after agency leadership realized it was a mistake. Other probationary employees were told they were being cut, then told that message was an error, before receiving a third message telling them they were, in fact, no longer employed.

The National Science Foundation said earlier this week it is rehiring about half of the 170 people it fired two weeks ago.

A US District Court judge said at a hearing last week that OPM’s original order directing agencies to fire probationary employees “is illegal, should be stopped, and rescinded” as it pertains to the handful of agencies involved in the case.