Trump administration plans to reclassify 50,000 federal workers, making them easier to fire

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — In its latest effort to weaken the federal workforce, the Trump administration issued a rule on Thursday that would shift an estimated 50,000 senior career staffers into a new category that would make them easier to fire.

The controversial rule allows agencies to reclassify federal employees involved in policy into at-will positions that don’t provide the same job protections that other career workers have. It will affect an estimated 2% of the federal workforce.

A main concern among federal worker unions and advocates is that the rule would eliminate these staffers’ ability to appeal any disciplinary action or termination before an independent body.

The Trump administration made it clear in the rule why it created the new category – called Schedule Policy/Career.

“Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct,” it said. The new category “will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives.”

The rule stems from an executive order President Donald Trump signed his first day in office last year.

It revives a similar executive order that Trump signed shortly before the 2020 election that created a category for federal employees involved in policy, known as Schedule F. Former President Joe Biden quickly reversed that earlier order and finalized a new rule in 2024 that further bolstered protections for career federal workers.

The new rule, which rescinds the 2024 rule, quickly drew promises of a lawsuit from a coalition of more than 30 unions, advocacy groups and others, which had already sued over the 2025 executive order.

The measure “allows the government to bypass existing civil service laws, strips employees of earned protections, and opens the door to politically motivated firings and hirings, which have already occurred since President Trump took office,” Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the organizations, said in a statement.

The new category could also make federal workers more wary of saying or doing anything that could be considered contrary to the administration’s views, experts said.

“A professional civil service means nurses and doctors can advocate for patient safety, inspectors can report violations, cybersecurity experts can warn about threats, and benefits specialists can tell the truth about what it takes to deliver services — without worrying they’ll be punished for it,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, said in a statement.

AFGE and several other unions are represented by Democracy Forward in a lawsuit challenging Schedule Policy/Career.

Also, creating a “pseudo political appointee class” could affect how the federal government works with and for the public, said John Hatton, staff vice president, policy and programs, at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, an advocacy group.

For instance, it could influence who is prosecuted, who is awarded grants, who get tariff exemptions and who receives federal relief funds in an emergency, he said.

“A nonpartisan, professional civil service tries to adhere to more objective criteria for making decisions,” Hatton continued.

The US has had a professional federal civil service since the late 1800s, when Congress replaced the “spoils system” with a merit-based hiring process.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the rule being issued.

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