Trump to reclassify many U.S. Federal workers, making them easier to fire

Trump administration reclassifies federal workers to "schedule policy/career," making mass layoffs easier, sparking criticism and concern.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday (April 18, 2025) his administration is set to change the employment classifications of tens of thousands of federal workers, a move governance experts say will make it easier to carry out more mass layoffs.

Mr. Trump said on social media that moving forward, career government employees that work on policy matters will be classified as "schedule policy/career."

This change would ensure the federal government will finally be "run like a business," Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump's announcement, putting into action an executive order he signed on his first day in office on January 20, will likely strip vast numbers of the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce of their job protections by effectively making them employees at will.

By deeming anyone involved in "policy" as part of this new category, the pool of people that could potentially be fired expands enormously, because nearly everyone in government touches policy in one way or another, said Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Mr. Trump ordered the reclassification of many government workers at the end of his first term, known as Schedule F, which Biden rescinded on his first day in office in 2021. Estimates then were that Schedule F could make at least 50,000 federal workers vulnerable to being fired.

The new order is broad enough that hundreds of thousands of people could be reclassified, Moynihan said, before firings begin.