Robert F. Kennedy, Jr confirmed to lead HHS

Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake as President Donald Trump’s administration began a mass firing of federal workers yesterday after the Office of Personnel Management met with agency leaders and advised them to dismiss probationary employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The move comes as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has promised to slash what they paint as wasteful spending. Earlier this week, an OPM spokesperson said about 75,000 federal employees accepted the White House’s “deferred resignation” offer to leave their roles but be paid through September.

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Employees who have probationary status have typically been with the federal government for only one or two years — before their civil service protections have kicked in. The exact number of people who will be terminated was not immediately clear.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it was dismissing more than 1,000 employees, including certain probationary employees. There are more than 43,000 probationary employees across the department, but the “vast majority” of them were exempt from firings, the agency said.

The Education Department began terminating dozens of probationary employees this week as well. At the Department of Housing and Urban development, senior-level managers were told who on their teams would be cut. The U.S. Forest Service is planning to terminate at least 3,400 people, one source said.