Trump makes it easier to fire 8,000 federal workers

Donald Trump has made it easier to fire roughly 8,000 senior federal workers, a move that reaches deep into the career civil service and gives the White House greater leverage over employees who help shape how agencies operate. The order affects mostly high-level, well-paid positions, nearly all at the GS-15 level, including policy-office leaders, chiefs of staff, regional-office heads, program managers, senior public affairs officials, and managers who oversee spending and grants.

The White House listed the action on its June 3, 2026 executive actions page as “Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service.” Its fact sheet said the goal is to make senior federal leaders who influence policy decisions “more accountable to the American people.” The Office of Personnel Management says Schedule Policy/Career covers career positions that are confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating, and that those jobs are filled on a nonpartisan basis.

The practical effect is stark: employees placed in the new category become at-will and lose access to Merit Systems Protection Board appeals for adverse actions. That marks a major break from the system that has long governed most of the federal workforce, where removal typically requires documented performance or misconduct and formal appeal rights. OPM said the final rule was published for public inspection on February 5, 2026, and would take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The idea did not emerge overnight. The Congressional Research Service says it was first conceived as Schedule F in 2020, then revived in Executive Order 14171 on January 20, 2025. The 2026 rule describes the affected jobs as having a “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character not normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition,” underscoring how far the administration is pushing to make policy-facing career posts more dependent on presidential control.

The scale is limited compared with the full federal payroll, but the stakes are unusually high. The government has about 4,000 political appointees and roughly 2 million career employees. A pool of 8,000 senior career positions is a small share of the total workforce, but it sits close to the center of agency decision-making and can shape how laws and regulations are carried out from one administration to the next.

The administration says the change is about accountability and removing weak performers. OPM said supervisors report “great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct,” and more than 94% of the more than 40,500 public comments on the proposal opposed it. Labor advocates warned that the rule would make experts easier to target for political reasons, while the American Federation of Government Employees said it would open the door to patronage, chill free speech and weaken whistleblower protections. The broader consequence is that future presidents may have a sharper tool for controlling the bureaucracy, not just through political appointees but through the career officials who keep government running.