The Trump administration’s HR office has ordered federal agencies to review the status of employees hired in the past 12 to 24 months and determine whether they will be retained or dismissed.

Agency leaders have until Friday, 24 January, to submit a list of employees whose services will be terminated. The move is part of Donald Trump’s widescale effort to trim down the federal government workforce.

On his first day at the White House, Trump also signed an executive order reclassifying thousands of federal civilian workers as political appointees. The change in status would enable Trump to fire the staff members without the guarantee of civil service protections.

'Smaller government with more efficiency'

After winning the election in November, Trump alluded to plans of running a “smaller government with more efficiency”. He asked billionaire CEO Elon Musk to help cut “wasteful expenditures” out of his administration.

Trump later appointed Musk and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy as his advisers under the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which aims to “dismantle bureaucracy” and introduce massive budget and staff cuts.

Ramaswamy – who eventually stepped down from his role at DOGE to pursue his gubernatorial plans – said as much as 75% of the federal civilian personnel could be axed to save Trump up to US$2 trillion.

Also Read: Trump picks Elon Musk to crack down on bureaucracy

Layoffs among probationary employees

Early this week, the Office of Personnel Management – which functions as the federal government’s HR office – ordered impromptu staff reviews in line with Trump’s plan to cut back.

Charles Ezell, the acting director of OPM, issued a memo asking for the names of probationary employees who could be fired “without triggering appeal rights” to the Merit Systems Protection Board. The MSPB handles complaints from government personnel against their administrators.

The list of employees up for retrenchment will also be routed to Amanda Scales, the new chief of staff at OPM and Musk’s employee at xAI, BloombergLaw reported.

Ezell, along with Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, also circulated a memo directing agency leaders to review offer letters to new hires.

Those slated to start working on or before 8 February may be onboarded as planned, but those joining after the date or who have no confirmed start date yet will have their offers rescinded.

Also Read: How Trump's controversial order reignited the debate on AI safety

The cancellation of remote work arrangements

The cancellation of job offers follows Trump’s order of a hiring freeze and the termination of remote work arrangements for 1.1 million government staff members qualified to work offsite.

Trump has ordered federal employees to report to the office full time. His allies admit this revocation of work-from-home privileges is also designed to trigger voluntary staff departures.

In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy said: “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.”

Political observers believe the HR changes mandated this week are only a glimpse of the massive restructuring set to take place during Trump’s presidency.