Federal Workforce Reductions and Schedule F

Updated2026-11-09 Covers2025-01-20 to 2026-11-18

Summary

Starting in its first week, the administration cut the federal workforce. It also moved to remove protections that let some career workers be fired only for cause, meaning for a real reason tied to their own work or conduct. It created a new category for “policy-influencing” jobs, called Schedule F (later Schedule Policy/Career). People in those jobs lose the protections. It also dismissed probationary employees, workers still in their trial period, across agencies.¹,² It offered about 2 million workers paid “deferred resignation,” which let them resign but stay on paid leave for months. It carried out layoffs called reductions in force (RIFs). It ended union bargaining rights for more than 1 million workers.³,⁴ Pew counts a net loss of about 238,000 federal workers in 2025, or 10.3%.⁴⁵ The losses included staff at National Weather Service field offices and fair-housing investigators at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).⁵,⁶ District courts, the trial-level federal courts, ruled several of these actions unlawful. Emergency orders from the Supreme Court let the probationary firings and agency RIFs go ahead. No fired probationary worker has been given their job back as of Nov 8, 2026.⁷,⁸,⁹ In 2026 the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal government’s personnel agency, took three kinds of appeals away from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). These are appeals of layoffs, of suitability (whether a person is fit for a federal job) and of probationary firings. OPM now decides them itself.⁶⁵,⁶⁶

Background

Most federal employees can be fired only for cause. They can appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an independent board that hears their appeals.¹⁰ Many are also covered by union contracts under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.⁵³ That law lets most career workers be fired only for cause and appeal to the MSPB. It also lets a president take agencies out of union bargaining when their “primary function” is national security.⁴ Probationary employees have fewer appeal rights. But they can still be let go only for their own performance or conduct.⁹ Congress creates and funds agencies. The Antideficiency Act⁵⁴ is a law that bars agencies from spending money Congress has not approved. It sets what agencies may do when their funding lapses, which happens when Congress passes no spending bill. During a lapse, the usual practice has been to furlough staff, meaning send them home from work, and call them back afterward.¹¹

What happened

Schedule F and new appointment categories

On Jan 20, 2025, Executive Order 14171 told OPM to remove civil-service protections from “policy-influencing” jobs. An executive order is a written order from the President to the agencies he runs. It is not a law passed by Congress. At the time, the category was estimated to cover about 50,000 employees.¹ On Jul 17, 2025, Executive Order 14317 created “Schedule G,” a non-career category for jobs of a “policy-advocating” character. The Civil Service Rules and Regulations do not apply when people in these jobs are removed. They are expected to resign when a new president takes office. New hires need White House approval. The first Schedule G appointee started Aug 25, 2025. By Oct 2026 there were 25, and 22 of them were at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). OPM proposed a regulation to carry out the order on Sept 18, 2026. The Partnership for Public Service said “Why it was needed was unclear” given that the administration already uses Schedule C, a category for political appointees.⁵⁰

On Nov 18, 2025, Government Executive reported on a draft final Schedule F rule that OPM had sent agencies. The draft said that “the status quo removal restrictions are unconstitutional overcorrections.”²⁹ OPM published the final Schedule Policy/Career rule in the Federal Register, the government’s official journal of rules, on Feb 6, 2026.⁷⁵ Of the public comments, 94% opposed it.³⁰ An executive order on Jun 3, 2026 moved about 8,000 positions into the new schedule. Officials said more could be added whenever the president chooses.³¹

Deferred resignation and the “What did you do last week?” email

On Jan 28, 2025, OPM sent its “Fork in the Road” email. It offered about 2 million workers deferred resignation: quit now and stay on paid leave through Sept 30.³ A lawsuit filed Jan 27 said OPM’s new email server lacked a privacy review. That review is required by the E-Government Act of 2002⁵⁵. That law requires agencies to check the privacy risks of new computer systems.¹² Democratic appropriators, the members of Congress who write spending bills, said no spending law or other law allowed the offer. On Feb 12, Judge George O’Toole Jr., a federal judge in Massachusetts, declined to block it. He lifted his pause on its deadline. He found that the unions lacked standing, which is the right to bring a case, and that the court lacked the power to hear it. He did not rule on whether the program was legal.³,⁸¹ On Feb 22–24, an OPM email asked every employee “What did you do last week?” It asked for five accomplishments.¹⁵ Elon Musk posted on X that not replying would be treated as a resignation. The email did not say so. OPM privately told agencies replies were “voluntary,” and a group that included labor unions argued that OPM has no power over other agencies’ employees.¹⁵

Probationary firings

The probationary firings peaked on Feb 14, 2025. About 1,000 National Park Service staff and thousands at the Agriculture Department (USDA) were let go. HUD and the Defense Department announced plans for deeper cuts.² Some firings were quickly reversed. They included nuclear-weapons oversight staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration (Feb 13–14). CNN counted 300+ of them, and the Energy Department said “less than 50.” USDA bird-flu responders were also brought back (Feb 18).¹³,¹¹⁰,¹⁴

The White House removed MSPB member Cathy Harris on Feb 10.¹⁶ A court put her back. On Mar 5, she ordered about 5,600 USDA probationary workers back for 45 days. She found “reasonable grounds” to think the identical “performance” firing letters were a prohibited personnel practice, an action federal law bars managers from taking.¹⁶,⁸⁵ On Mar 28, a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit, the federal appeals court in Washington, paused her return to the board 2–1, leaving the board without a quorum, the smallest number of members needed to act.¹⁶,⁸⁶ On Apr 8, the Supreme Court paused an order to rehire about 16,000 probationary workers (OPM v. AFGE). It held that the groups that sued lacked standing.⁷ On Sept 12, Judge William Alsup ruled after a trial. He found that OPM had directed the firing of about 25,000 probationary employees “under false pretense,” and that “OPM decided who to fire.”⁹ He declined to order that they get their jobs back.⁹,¹⁷

Reductions in force

On Feb 11, 2025, Executive Order 14210 told agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with applicable law,” meaning to get ready for large layoffs. It said to start with offices that “perform functions not mandated by statute or other law.” That means work that no law requires. It limited hiring to one new employee for every four who left. Each agency had a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team lead. If that person decided a career job opening should not be filled, it would stay empty unless the agency head decided otherwise. A memo from OPM and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the White House budget office, set a Mar 13 deadline for RIF plans. Unions and other groups sued (AFGE v. Trump). AFGE is the American Federation of Government Employees, a union.⁴⁷ RIFs followed: - Mar 11, 2025: Education announced a RIF of about 1,400 employees. Along with about 600 earlier departures, this cut its workforce roughly in half.¹⁸ - Apr 1: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began cutting up to 10,000 jobs.¹⁹ - Jul 7: The VA dropped its planned RIF. An internal memo reported Mar 5 had set it at about 80,000 of roughly 480,000 jobs. The VA still expected to lose about 30,000 by Sept 30 through the hiring freeze, deferred resignations and early retirement. Its headcount had fallen from 484,000 on Jan 1 to 467,000 by Jun 1.²⁰,⁸³,⁸⁴ - After Jul 8: The Supreme Court let RIFs go ahead, with Justice Jackson disagreeing. State then laid off about 1,350 people. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shut down its research office, which EPA said would save about $749 million.⁸,²¹,²²

A shutdown, or funding lapse, happens when Congress passes no spending bill. Before the fall 2025 shutdown, OMB told agencies to draft RIF plans. It said RIF notices would come “in addition to” furlough notices.¹¹ On Sept 30, Trump said of those who would be laid off, “they’re Democrats. They’re gonna be Democrats.”¹¹ More than 4,100 notices went out Oct 10. Judge Susan Illston blocked them Oct 15.²³,¹¹¹ On Nov 7, Judge Christopher Cooper, a federal judge in Washington (D.D.C.), ruled that the Education Department had violated the First Amendment, which protects free speech.⁵⁶ On the first day of the shutdown, the department had replaced furloughed employees’ own out-of-office replies. The new message said they were furloughed because “Democrat Senators” had blocked a Republican funding bill. Cooper permanently barred partisan edits to the automatic replies of AFGE members at the department. He wrote: “Political officials are free to blame whomever they wish for the shutdown, but they cannot use rank-and-file civil servants as their unwilling spokespeople.”⁵¹ The Nov 12 law that reopened the government cancelled about 4,000 layoffs, with back pay.²⁴ The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) received over 1,000 complaints about shutdown messages from the White House and 37 agencies. On Sept 25, 2026, it declined to seek discipline because agencies had relied on a 2024 advisory opinion. But it warned that “derogatory tone and broad dissemination” may show an election purpose that the Hatch Act⁷⁴ forbids.⁷³ That law limits political activity by federal employees on the job. In a settlement around Sept 23, 2026, the Justice Department (DOJ) agreed to end a lawsuit. It agreed that the OMB memo and OPM guidance on shutdown RIFs “have been rescinded in full and are no longer operative.”¹¹²

Weather offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lost staff. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) lost at least 1,400 more staff than it hired in 2025. Some prisons ran short of food and soap. HUD lost fair-housing investigators.⁵,³⁷,⁹²,⁶ The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s auditing arm, found HUD lost 29% of its workforce in 2025, mostly through deferred resignation. Of those who left, 41% had more than 20 years’ service. HUD did not respond to GAO during the audit.⁷²

Collective bargaining

Collective bargaining is when a union negotiates a contract with an employer for its workers. On Mar 27, 2025, Executive Order 14251 ended collective bargaining at about 20 agencies. It relied on the national-security exception in 5 U.S.C. § 7103(b)(1)⁵⁷. That federal law lets the President exclude agencies whose main work is intelligence, investigation or national security.⁴ Police and firefighters were exempted.⁴ On Aug 6, the VA cancelled contracts covering more than 350,000 workers. Another figure in the record is ~377,000.²⁵,²⁶ Its announcement cited unions’ opposition to “VA reforms,” not national security. Secretary Doug Collins said unions “protect and reward bad workers.”²⁵ The BOP followed on Sept 25. Director William K. Marshall III called the union “an obstacle to progress.”²⁷ On Feb 26, 2026, a Ninth Circuit panel cancelled the unions’ preliminary injunction, a court order that stops something until the case is decided. Judge Daniel Bress wrote that the order “discloses no retaliatory animus on its face.” That means the order itself shows no aim to punish the unions.²⁸,⁸⁷ On Jun 17, the panel issued an amended opinion. It barred more requests for rehearing, including rehearing en banc, in which all the judges of the appeals court hear the case together. It also issued its mandate, the formal order that ends the appeal. So the district court must end its injunction.⁸⁸

The VA union sued in AFGE Local 2305 v. VA, a case in federal court in Rhode Island (D.R.I.) filed Nov 4, 2025.¹⁰⁵ Judge Melissa DuBose blocked the contract’s cancellation on Mar 13, 2026.⁶⁹ The VA issued a new termination letter on Mar 26.¹⁰⁶ On Mar 27, DuBose held that the letter did not comply with her injunction. She ordered the government to explain why it should not be held in contempt of court, which means disobeying a court order. No contempt finding is recorded.¹⁰⁷ On May 16, the First Circuit appeals court paused only part of her order, leaving the injunction in place.¹⁰⁸ On Aug 7, DuBose held that the contract “remains in full force” for its term. The VA had announced a plan to treat it as ended Aug 8.⁶⁹,¹⁰⁹ EPA scientists told CNN they no longer felt safe objecting after union contracts were ended. EPA denied “engineering assessments toward predetermined outcomes.”³⁸ In the BOP case, Judge Vernon Oliver, a federal judge in Connecticut (D. Conn.), ordered the contract restored on Sept 29, 2026. He found that Marshall’s own statements suggested the reason was not national security.²⁷,⁹³ On Oct 6, the union asked the court to hold BOP in contempt. It said BOP had not restored union offices or representation. DOJ said BOP was complying.⁴⁴,⁹⁴ On Oct 7, BOP issued a new termination notice that withdrew Marshall’s 2025 notice and blog post.⁹⁵ On Oct 16, Oliver held that the new termination broke his injunction as improper “self help,” meaning BOP acted on its own instead of asking the court. But he denied the contempt motion.⁹⁶ On Oct 20, BOP asked him to clarify or change the injunction so it could go ahead with the new termination.⁹⁷ The legal questions in these cases are set out under Why it matters below.

Appeal rights moved to OPM

On Apr 24, 2025, Executive Order 14284 changed how probation ends. The agency had to certify, within 30 days of the end, that finalizing it “advances the public interest,” or the appointment would end. The order also replaced the rules that had given probationers MSPB appeal procedures. It made a process set by OPM “the sole and exclusive means of appealing terminations.”⁶⁵ The MSPB received about 12,000 appeals in fiscal 2025, more than double a normal year, while short of staff.¹⁰ OPM proposed the suitability-appeals and RIF-appeals rules on Feb 9–10, 2026. OPM called MSPB processes “cumbersome.” It blamed slow Senate confirmations for the board’s lack of a quorum. AFGE’s Everett Kelley said the rules aim to “illegally deny federal workers their right to appeal.”⁸⁰,⁹⁹,¹⁰⁰

On Aug 3, 2026, OPM published final rules, effective Sept 2, that rank performance above tenure and length of service in RIFs. The rules move RIF, suitability and probationary appeals to an OPM office. That office decides on the written record, with no automatic right to a hearing. Probationers may appeal only firings based on partisan political reasons, marital status or conditions from before they were hired. OPM said 99% of 1,252 comments on the RIF-appeals rule opposed it.⁶⁶,⁶⁵,¹⁰¹ OPM and the MSPB also proposed (Jul 2) that the Board review penalties with a test that weighs all the circumstances. They proposed limits on settlements that clear employees’ records. An Oct 19 final rule, effective Nov 18, set terms for administrative leave during deferred resignation and “workforce realignment.”⁶⁷,⁹⁸ The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted 2–1 on Aug 26, 2026 to propose ending some rights of federal employees in discrimination cases. These are guaranteed hearings, discovery (the exchange of evidence) and class complaints, which are complaints made for a whole group. Chair Andrea Lucas said the hearing process is something the EEOC created, not a right set by law. Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal said the plan “kneecaps” federal employees.⁷¹

Other personnel and speech measures

• Feb 12, 2025: Executive Order 14211 said that a Foreign Service officer’s “failure to faithfully implement the President’s policy is grounds for professional discipline, including separation.”⁴⁸
• Feb 11, 2025: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fired Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief financial officer Mary Comans and three colleagues as “deep state activists.” Elon Musk then shared another account’s post. It said she had been “just fired for funneling $58 million to illegal migrant hotels in Manhattan.” Musk added, “A criminal action.”¹⁰²,¹⁰³ On Jul 21, 2026, Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a federal judge in Virginia (E.D. Va.), held that she had lost her job and “her liberty interest in her good name” without notice or a hearing. On Oct 13, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick cleared her name. He found that high-ranking officials “engaged in a coordinated public relations campaign” to attack her integrity. He found that Musk “knew or should have known” that his own staff had approved the payments. He called Musk’s post “little more than state sanctioned intimidation.”⁴⁹,¹⁰⁴
• Feb 14, 2025: The Federal Trade Commission barred its political appointees from holding American Bar Association (ABA) leadership jobs. It also barred them from attending ABA events or renewing ABA memberships. It cited the ABA’s “long history of leftist advocacy” and its “attacks on the Trump-Vance Administration’s governing agenda.”³²
• Jul 3 and Aug 29, 2025: EPA placed 139 staff who signed a dissent letter on leave. It accused them of “unlawfully undermining” the president’s agenda. According to AFGE, it fired at least eight.³³,⁹⁰,⁹¹
• Jul 11, 2025: Reason, citing The New York Times, reported on the FBI under Director Kash Patel. As part of a crackdown on leaks, the FBI was giving employees polygraphs, or lie-detector tests. The tests included questions about whether employees had criticized him.³⁴
• 2025: About 100 immigration judges were fired while the Justice Department recruited “deportation judges.”³⁵
• Dec 2025 to May 2026: The National Association of Immigration Judges challenged a Justice Department policy. The policy required a supervisor’s approval for judges’ public speeches. The Fourth Circuit appeals court revived the suit. It found “serious questions” about whether the Civil Service Reform Act’s review system “continues to function as intended.” That was because the Special Counsel and two MSPB members had been removed. The Supreme Court denied a pause (Dec 19, 2025), then on May 26, 2026, in Margolin v. NAIJ⁵⁸, reversed the ruling without full argument. It held that the Fourth Circuit had decided on a ground the parties had not raised. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Barrett, wrote that the decision “was also wrong on the merits.”⁵²
• May 26, 2026: OPM Director Scott Kupor proposed a nondisclosure agreement, a promise to keep information secret, for all federal employees. It would cover “internal agency operations, personnel matters, procurement processes, or any sensitive, pre-decisional or deliberative material,” and Kupor cited news articles as evidence of leaks. It had not been finalized in the sources the ledger cites. A federal law bars nondisclosure rules that limit protected reports to Congress, the Special Counsel or an inspector general (5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(13)⁷⁶).⁷⁰
• May 29, 2025; stayed Sept 11, 2026: OPM’s Merit Hiring Plan, dated May 29, 2025, asked job applicants how they would “help advance the President’s Executive Orders.” A federal court in Massachusetts paused the question on Sept 11, 2026 (AFGE v. Kupor⁵⁹). It found irreparable harm to applicants, meaning harm that cannot be undone later. It gave OPM seven days to notify agencies.³⁶,⁸⁹

Key dates

• 2025-01-20 — Schedule F executive order (EO 14171) — → ledger
• 2025-01-28 — Fork in the Road and 2025 departure totals — → ledger
• 2025-02-11 — EO 14210 orders RIF preparations and DOGE hiring review — → ledger
• 2025-02-14 — DOGE mass probationary firing day — → ledger
• 2025-03-27 — EO 14251 strips collective bargaining — → ledger
• 2025-04-08 — SCOTUS OPM v. AFGE⁶⁴ stay — → ledger
• 2025-04-24 — EO 14284 probationary certification; OPM takes probationary appeals — → ledger
• 2025-07-08 — SCOTUS allows mass RIFs — → ledger
• 2025-09-12 — Alsup rules probationary firings unlawful — → ledger
• 2025-10-10 — Shutdown RIF notices to 4,100+ workers — → ledger
• 2025-10-15 — Illston TRO blocks shutdown RIFs — → ledger
• 2025-11-12 — Reopening law rescinds shutdown layoffs — → ledger
• 2026-02-05 — Final Schedule Policy/Career rule (Federal Register publication Feb 6) — → ledger
• 2026-06-03 — EO moves ~8,000 positions into Schedule Policy/Career — → ledger
• 2026-06-17 — Ninth Circuit issues mandate on bargaining order — → ledger
• 2026-08-03 — OPM final rules move RIF, suitability and probationary appeals from the MSPB — → ledger

Why it matters

Job protection for career staff (Civil Service Reform Act of 1978). Federal law protects most career employees from being fired except for cause. It also gives them the right to appeal to the MSPB.¹⁰ The legal question is whether the president may remove those protections from career staff by moving their jobs into Schedule Policy/Career. OPM’s draft final rule states that “the status quo removal restrictions are unconstitutional overcorrections.”²⁹ Suits by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), AFGE and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Democracy Forward are pending, with no ruling yet.³¹

Probationary firings (OPM’s power over agency staff; Article III standing). The question is whether OPM may direct other agencies’ firings and give poor performance as the reason. Judge Alsup said OPM “has no authority to tell any other agency… who it can hire and fire, period,” in his Feb 27, 2025 order. He found on Sept 12, 2025 that the “performance” reason was false. He ordered personnel files corrected.⁹ The Supreme Court’s Apr 8, 2025 pause rested on standing, not on whether the firings were legal. Article III of the Constitution sets up the federal courts and lets them hear only real disputes, so a person who sues must show a real injury.⁶⁰,⁷ The record here does not include the administration’s stated legal basis for OPM’s direction of the firings.

Appeal channels (5 U.S.C. §§ 7701, 7703; United States v. Fausto). Section 7701⁷⁷ lets employees appeal to the MSPB any action made appealable “under any law, rule, or regulation,” and § 7703⁷⁸ lets courts review MSPB decisions. OPM withdrew the rule that sent RIF appeals to the MSPB. Its position is that, as a result, “there is no MSPB decision for judicial review under section 7703.” Commenters responded that OPM “cannot eliminate judicial review by regulation.”⁶⁶ The legal question is how far the president and OPM may narrow appeal channels by writing new rules. Those channels rested on OPM’s own earlier rules. They sit within the Civil Service Reform Act system described in United States v. Fausto (1988)⁷⁹, a Supreme Court case that treated that law as the full set of appeal paths for federal workers. No court has ruled.⁶⁵,⁶⁶

Collective bargaining (5 U.S.C. § 7103(b)(1); First Amendment). EO 14251 relies on the law’s exception for agencies whose main work is intelligence, investigation or national security.⁴ There are two legal questions. Does the law let a president remove most of the unionized workforce from bargaining just by declaring it? And did the order punish unions for speech the First Amendment protects? Unions argued that the VA’s failure to mention national security showed the stated reason was a pretext, a cover for the real reason.²⁵ The Ninth Circuit found no aim to punish on the face of the order (Feb 26, 2026). In an amended opinion, it barred more rehearing requests and issued its mandate (Jun 17, 2026). Whether the order fits the law is still undecided.²⁸,⁸⁷,⁸⁸ In the BOP case, Judge Vernon Oliver found that Marshall’s own statements suggested the reason for cancelling the contract was not national security. He ordered the contract restored (Sept 29, 2026).²⁷,⁹³ Judge DuBose held that the VA contract “remains in full force” (Aug 7, 2026).⁶⁹,¹⁰⁹

Funding lapses (Antideficiency Act; Art. I §9 cl. 7, Appropriations Clause⁶¹). The Appropriations Clause says Congress decides how public money is spent, and the executive may spend only what Congress has approved. The question is whether a lapse in funding lets agencies carry out RIFs instead of furloughs (see Shutdowns, Rescissions and Impoundment Findings).¹¹ No court decided whether it was legal. Judge Illston blocked the notices, Congress cancelled the layoffs, and DOJ’s 2026 settlement withdrew the OMB memo and OPM guidance.¹¹¹,²⁴,¹¹²

Employee speech (First Amendment; Pickering v. Board of Education⁶²). Under Pickering (1968), a Supreme Court case, courts weigh two interests. One is a public employee’s interest in speaking on matters of public concern. The other is the government employer’s interest in running its services well.³³ EPA suspended and fired staff who signed a dissent letter. That raised claims under the First Amendment and claims of punishment for whistleblowing. EPA’s stated position was that they were “unlawfully undermining” the president’s agenda.³³ The hiring question that asked applicants how they would advance the president’s orders was paused in AFGE v. Kupor (Sept 11, 2026).³⁶

Outcome

Where things stand

Most separations, meaning departures from federal jobs, are still in effect. Pew counts a net loss of nearly 238,000 federal workers (−10.3%) in 2025: 348,219 separations against 116,912 hires.⁴⁵ OPM data from May 2026 showed the covered civilian workforce down about 286,000 from late 2024.⁴⁶ The Partnership for Public Service counts 10,436 RIFs from Sept 2024 to Jan 2026, while in the decade before, RIFs had never topped 300 in a fiscal year. HHS and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) accounted for 77.9% of them. DHS was “the only large federal agency that increased its workforce.”⁶⁸ About 154,000 took deferred resignation. Sen. Blumenthal estimates ~200,000.³ OPM figures reported Jan 6, 2026 show about 317,000 departures in 2025 against about 68,000 hires. OPM calls 92% of 2025 departures “voluntary,” and the Partnership for Public Service calls them a “forced exodus.”³⁹,⁸²

Judge Alsup ruled the probationary firings unlawful and declined to order the workers rehired. Agencies must correct personnel files.⁹ The ledger records no appeals-court ruling on that judgment as of Nov 8. The record has no ruling yet in the Schedule Policy/Career suits, on the merits of the bargaining order or on the OPM appeal rules. A union suit reported for Aug 25 is unverified.⁶⁶

Status

Who is affected

The personnel actions reach federal employees and job applicants directly. These include probationary workers and those offered deferred resignation. They also include those laid off in reductions in force (RIFs) and union members whose contracts were cancelled. Others are employees whose appeals moved from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).⁹,³,⁶⁸,⁴,⁶⁶ Staff losses were also reported at offices that serve the public, including federal prisons and fair-housing investigations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).³⁷,⁶,⁷² Congress reversed some actions and courts blocked others, some after workers had already left.²⁴,⁴¹,⁴³ OPM describes most 2025 departures as voluntary. The Partnership for Public Service disputes that account.³⁹

• Federal workforce overall (separations, including RIFs under Executive Order 14210, In force) — Pew counts a net loss of about 238,000 workers (−10.3%) in 2025, 348,219 separations against 116,912 hires. OPM data showed the covered civilian workforce down about 286,000 from late 2024 by May 2026. OPM figures show about 317,000 departures in 2025 against about 68,000 hires. OPM calls 92% of them “voluntary,” and the Partnership for Public Service calls them a “forced exodus.”⁴⁵,⁴⁶,³⁹,⁸²
• Employees laid off in RIFs (agency RIFs, In force) — The Partnership for Public Service counts 10,436 RIFs from Sept 2024 to Jan 2026, against no more than 300 in any fiscal year of the decade before. Of them, 77.9% were at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Education announced a RIF of about 1,400 (Mar 11, 2025), and State laid off about 1,350 after Jul 8, 2025.⁶⁸,¹⁸,⁸,²¹
• Workers who took deferred resignation (offer of Jan 28, 2025, Concluded) — About 154,000 agreed to resign in exchange for paid leave through Sept 30, 2025. Sen. Richard Blumenthal estimates about 200,000.³
• Probationary employees (firings, Pending) — Judge William Alsup found Sept 12, 2025 that OPM had directed the firing of about 25,000 probationary employees “under false pretense.” He ordered personnel files corrected but did not order the workers rehired. The Supreme Court had paused an order to rehire about 16,000 (Apr 8, 2025). As of Nov 8, 2026 no fired probationary worker has been given their job back.⁹,⁷
• Employees laid off during the shutdown (shutdown RIFs, Reversed by Congress) — More than 4,100 notices went out Oct 10, 2025 and were blocked Oct 15. The Nov 12, 2025 law cancelled about 4,000 layoffs with back pay, and State said its July layoffs were not covered.²³,¹¹¹,²⁴,⁴⁰
• Union-represented workers (bargaining order, Executive Order 14251, In force) — The Mar 27, 2025 order ended collective bargaining at about 20 agencies, covering more than 1 million workers. The Ninth Circuit’s amended opinion of Jun 17, 2026 barred more rehearing of its ruling for the government. Whether the order fits the law is undecided.⁴,²⁸,⁸⁸
• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Bureau of Prisons (BOP) union members (contract cancellations, Blocked) — The VA cancelled contracts covering more than 350,000 workers Aug 6, 2025 (another figure in the record is about 377,000). Judge Melissa DuBose held Aug 7, 2026 that the VA master contract “remains in full force.” Judge Vernon Oliver ordered the BOP contract restored Sept 29, 2026. He held Oct 16 that BOP’s Oct 7 new termination broke his injunction.²⁵,²⁶,⁶⁹,²⁷,⁹³,⁹⁶
• Federal prison staff and inmates (2025 separations, In force) — The BOP lost at least 1,400 more staff than it hired in 2025, and many of the departing officers went to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for $50,000 signing bonuses. ProPublica reported on Nov 21, 2025 that some prisons ran short of food and soap.³⁷,⁹²
• HUD staff and fair-housing complainants (departures, mostly through deferred resignation, Concluded) — The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found HUD lost 29% of its workforce in 2025, with 41% of those leaving having more than 20 years’ service. HUD lost fair-housing investigators. HUD did not respond to GAO during the audit.⁷²,⁶
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) workers (dismissals, Blocked) — 328 workers got their jobs back May 13, 2025, after a federal judge ordered HHS to restore the Respiratory Health Division.⁴¹
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees (cut of about 50% of the workforce, Blocked) — A court ruled the cut unlawful Sept 12, 2026.⁴³
• Employees appealing RIF, suitability and probationary actions (OPM appeal rules, In force) — Since Sept 2, 2026 an OPM office decides these appeals on the written record, with no automatic right to a hearing. Probationers may appeal only firings based on partisan political reasons, marital status or conditions from before they were hired. OPM said 99% of 1,252 comments on the RIF-appeals rule opposed it. Appeals of RIFs announced earlier stay at the MSPB. The MSPB received about 12,000 appeals in fiscal 2025, more than double a normal year.⁶⁶,⁶⁵,¹⁰¹,¹⁰
• Holders of Schedule Policy/Career positions (Jun 3, 2026 executive order, In force) — About 8,000 positions were moved into the schedule, about 97% of them at GS-15 or above, the top civil-service pay grade. People in these jobs lose protection from being fired except for cause. About 50,000 had first been estimated. Of the public comments on the rule, 94% opposed it.³¹,¹,³⁰
• Education Department employees (partisan out-of-office replies, Blocked) — Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Nov 7, 2025 that replacing furloughed employees’ replies with a message blaming “Democrat Senators” violated the First Amendment. He permanently barred such edits for American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) members.⁵¹
• Federal job applicants (OPM hiring question, Blocked) — On Sept 11, 2026, a federal court in Massachusetts paused a question for job applicants. It asked how they would “help advance the President’s Executive Orders,” and the court found irreparable harm to applicants.³⁶

Key players

• Donald Trump — President — signed the Schedule F and bargaining orders.¹,⁴
• Elon Musk — DOGE leader — posted that workers who did not answer the “What did you do last week?” email would be treated as having resigned.¹⁵
• Russell Vought — OMB director — OMB told agencies to draft shutdown RIF plans and issued the October notices.¹¹,²³
• Doug Collins — VA Secretary — oversaw VA firings and the cancelling of union contracts.²⁰,²⁵
• Cathy Harris — MSPB member — ordered workers rehired; was removed.¹⁶
• William Alsup and Susan Illston — federal judges (N.D. Cal.) — ruled the probationary firings unlawful; blocked the shutdown RIFs.⁹,¹¹¹
• Scott Kupor — OPM Director — led OPM as it issued the 2026 appeal rules; proposed the employee nondisclosure agreement.⁶⁶,⁷⁰
• Everett Kelley — AFGE — opposed OPM’s proposed appeal rules.⁸⁰
• Melissa DuBose — federal judge (D.R.I.) — enforced the order restoring the VA union contract.⁶⁹
• Kash Patel — FBI Director — the FBI under him used employee lie-detector tests that asked about criticism of him.³⁴
• William K. Marshall III — BOP Director — cancelled the prison workers’ union contract.²⁷

Related arcs: Musk, DOGE and Conflict-of-Interest Questions, Withdrawn Studies and Deleted Federal Data, Public Health Under RFK Jr., Climate and Environmental Policy Changes, Justice Department and FBI Personnel Changes, Inspectors General and Watchdogs, Conflicts Between the Executive and the Courts.

Chronology

• 2025-01-20 — Schedule F executive order (EO 14171) — → ledger
• 2025-01-24 — OPM sets up governmentwide email server — → ledger
• 2025-01-27 — Employees’ class action over OPM email server — → ledger
• 2025-01-28 — Fork in the Road deferred-resignation offer — → ledger
• 2025-02 — Immigration-court purge — → ledger
• 2025-02-10 — MSPB member Harris removed — → ledger
• 2025-02-11 — EO 14210 orders RIF preparations and DOGE hiring review — → ledger
• 2025-02-11 — DHS fires FEMA CFO Comans and three colleagues — → ledger
• 2025-02-11 — Musk posts that FEMA CFO Comans committed “criminal action” — → ledger
• 2025-02-12 — EO 14211 “One Voice” for the Foreign Service — → ledger
• 2025-02-12 — Judge O’Toole declines to block deferred-resignation offer — → ledger
• 2025-02-13 — NNSA nuclear staff fired — → ledger
• 2025-02-14 — Energy Department rescinds NNSA firings — → ledger
• 2025-02-14 — DOGE mass probationary firing day — → ledger
• 2025-02-14 — FTC bars appointees from ABA — → ledger
• 2025-02-14 — VA fires nearly 1,000 probationary employees — → ledger
• 2025-02-18 — USDA bird-flu staff fired — → ledger
• 2025-02-22 — “What did you do last week?” email — → ledger
• 2025-02-27 — NOAA layoffs and re-firings — → ledger
• 2025-03-05 — VA memo sets goal of cutting about 80,000 jobs — → ledger
• 2025-03-05 — MSPB’s Harris orders about 5,600 USDA probationary workers back — → ledger
• 2025-03-11 — Education Department RIF — → ledger
• 2025-03-27 — EO 14251 strips collective bargaining — → ledger
• 2025-03-28 — D.C. Circuit stays Harris reinstatement — → ledger
• 2025-04-01 — HHS mass layoffs — → ledger
• 2025-04-08 — SCOTUS OPM v. AFGE⁶⁴ stay — → ledger
• 2025-04-24 — EO 14284 probationary certification; OPM takes probationary appeals — → ledger
• 2025-05-13 — NIOSH workers reinstated — → ledger
• 2025-05-29 — OPM hiring “loyalty question” — → ledger
• 2025-06-30 — EPA staff publish “Declaration of Dissent” — → ledger
• 2025-07-03 — EPA puts 139 dissent signers on leave — → ledger
• 2025-07-07 — VA drops RIF but plans to shed about 30,000 — → ledger
• 2025-07-08 — SCOTUS allows mass RIFs — → ledger
• 2025-07-11 — FBI loyalty polygraphs — → ledger
• 2025-07-11 — State Department layoffs — → ledger
• 2025-07-17 — EO 14317 creates Schedule G — → ledger
• 2025-07-18 — EPA abolishes research office — → ledger
• 2025-08-06 — VA terminates union contracts — → ledger
• 2025-08-29 — EPA fires at least eight dissent signers — → ledger
• 2025-09-12 — Alsup rules probationary firings unlawful — → ledger
• 2025-09-25 — BOP cancels union contract — → ledger
• 2025-09-30 — Trump: shutdown layoffs “gonna be Democrats” — → ledger
• 2025-10-10 — Shutdown RIF notices to 4,100+ workers — → ledger
• 2025-10-15 — Illston TRO blocks shutdown RIFs — → ledger
• 2025-10-16 — HUD fair-housing investigators cut — → ledger
• 2025-11-04 — VA union sues over contract termination — → ledger
• 2025-11-07 — Education autoreply messages ruled a First Amendment violation — → ledger
• 2025-11-12 — Reopening law rescinds shutdown layoffs with back pay — → ledger
• 2025-11-18 — Draft final Schedule F rule sent to agencies — → ledger
• 2025-11-21 — ProPublica: BOP staff losses and shortages — → ledger
• 2025-12-19 — SCOTUS denies stay in immigration judges’ speech case — → ledger
• 2026-01-06 — OPM figures: about 317,000 departures in 2025 — → ledger
• 2026-02-05 — Final Schedule Policy/Career rule (Federal Register publication Feb 6) — → ledger
• 2026-02-09 — OPM proposes moving suitability appeals from the MSPB — → ledger
• 2026-02-10 — OPM proposes moving RIF appeals from the MSPB — → ledger
• 2026-02-26 — Ninth Circuit vacates injunction against EO 14251 — → ledger
• 2026-03-07 — Kari Lake appointment and layoffs voided — → ledger
• 2026-03-13 — VA union contract termination enjoined — → ledger
• 2026-03-26 — VA issues new contract termination letter — → ledger
• 2026-03-27 — DuBose orders VA to show cause on contempt — → ledger
• 2026-04-16 — Partnership for Public Service workforce and RIF counts — → ledger
• 2026-05-16 — First Circuit grants partial stay in VA case — → ledger
• 2026-05-26 — OPM proposes employee nondisclosure agreement — → ledger
• 2026-05-26 — Margolin v. NAIJ reverses the Fourth Circuit — → ledger
• 2026-06-03 — EO moves ~8,000 positions into Schedule Policy/Career — → ledger
• 2026-06-08 — EPA scientists describe pressure after union loss — → ledger
• 2026-06-17 — Ninth Circuit issues mandate on bargaining order — → ledger
• 2026-06-30 — OPM final suitability rule — → ledger
• 2026-07-02 — OPM–MSPB penalty proposal — → ledger
• 2026-07-21 — FEMA CFO Comans firing ruled a due-process violation — → ledger
• 2026-08-03 — OPM final rules move RIF, suitability and probationary appeals from the MSPB — → ledger
• 2026-08-07 — DuBose holds VA contract “remains in full force” — → ledger
• 2026-08-26 — EEOC proposes ending federal employees’ guaranteed hearings — → ledger
• 2026-09-11 — Court stays OPM hiring question — → ledger
• 2026-09-12 — FEMA workforce cut ruled unlawful — → ledger
• 2026-09-23 — DOJ settles AFGE v. OMB; shutdown-RIF guidance rescinded — → ledger
• 2026-09-25 — OSC declines discipline for shutdown messages — → ledger
• 2026-09-29 — Judge Oliver orders BOP contract restored — → ledger
• 2026-10-06 — Prison union seeks contempt — → ledger
• 2026-10-07 — BOP issues new contract termination notice — → ledger
• 2026-10-13 — Magistrate judge clears Comans’s name — → ledger
• 2026-10-14 — GAO on HUD workforce losses — → ledger
• 2026-10-16 — Oliver holds re-termination violated injunction; contempt denied — → ledger
• 2026-10-19 — OPM final administrative-leave rule — → ledger
• 2026-10-20 — BOP asks to clarify or modify injunction — → ledger

Sources