DOGE latest: What is a probationary worker?

The Trump administration, with the help of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, has intensified its vast directive to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week that told agency leaders to plan for "large-scale reductions in force." The order was an expansion of previous directions from the Office of Personnel Management, which told agencies earlier this week that probationary employees should be fired if they weren’t meeting high standards.

Federal workers, particularly what’s known as probationary workers, are preparing for sweeping layoffs. 

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What is a probationary worker? 

What we know:

Probationary workers are federal government employees who generally have less than a year on the job. 

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump (R), his son X Musk, and White House staff secretary Will Scharf (L), speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Wa

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What we don't know:

It’s not clear how many workers are currently in a probationary period. According to government data maintained by OPM, as of March 2024, 220,000 workers had less than a year on the job — the most recent data available.

Who is being fired? 

Dig deeper:

The firing of probationary employees began last week and has included the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education workers. Several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees have been fired, upending staff just weeks after a fatal mid-air collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and right before a Delta plane crashed while landing in Toronto. 

Probationary employees who were conducting critical functions and had high-level clearances, including staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration, were fired despite their role. The IRS will also lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season. 

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At least 39 were fired from the Education Department on last week, according to a union that represents agency workers, including civil rights workers, special education specialists and student aid officials.

The layoffs also hit Department of Veterans Affairs researchers working on cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, said Thursday.

Department of Government Efficiency staffers were at the Pentagon this week and receiving lists of the military’s probationary employees, U.S. officials said.

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Even workers in the personnel office itself were not immune: Dozens of probationary employees at OPM were told that they were being dismissed and then instructed to leave the building within a half-hour, according to another person who likewise spoke on condition of anonymity.

Who is ordering probationary workers to be fired? 

The decision on probationary workers came from the Office of Personnel Management, which serves as a human resources department for the federal government, sources told The Associated Press. 

What they're saying:

Musk, whom President Trump has given wide leeway to slash government spending with his Department of Government Efficiency, called Thursday for the elimination of whole agencies.

"I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind," Musk said via a videocall to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. "If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back."

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The other side:

Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees representing federal workers, said the administration "abused" the probation status of workers "to conduct a politically driven mass firing spree, targeting employees not because of performance, but because they were hired before Trump took office."