Layoffs and Job Reductions

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      C.I.A. to Cut Over 1,000 Staff Positions, Using Attrition

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      The agency plans, for now, to use attrition, including retirements and voluntary resignations, to reduce the size of the C.I.A. instead of more mass firings.The C.I.A. plans to cut more than 1,000 staff positions through attrition over the next few years as the Trump administration shrinks the federal government, according to officials briefed on the plans.The agency does not plan any more mass firings. About 80 recently hired employees were let go in March. The C.I.A. is also firing officers who had worked on diversity issues, although a judge has temporarily halted that effort.For the next rounds of reduction, the agency plans, for now, to use normal attrition, including retirements and resignations.A spokeswoman for the agency did not directly confirm the plan to reduce its size but said in a statement that John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, was “moving swiftly” to ensure that its work force was “responsive to the administration’s national security priorities.” The cuts were confirmed by officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about them.Changes at the agency, the spokeswoman said, would “provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position C.I.A. to deliver on its mission.”The plan to reduce the size of the agency was earlier reported by The Washington Post.The C.I.A. does not officially discuss the size of its staff, but it is believed to number about 22,000. Other intelligence agencies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency, are planning reductions as well. More

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      Trump Executive Order Makes It Easier to Fire Probationary Federal Workers

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      The order declares that employees will only attain full employment status if their managers review and sign off on their performance, adding a new obstacle for probationary workers to clear.President Trump issued an executive order on Thursday making it easier for the government to fire federal employees who are in a probationary period.Probationary government workers already have far fewer job protections than their established colleagues, and they were the Trump administration’s first targets for mass firings earlier this year. At least 24,000 of those terminations have led to court-ordered reinstatements that were overturned on appeals.Normally, probationary federal employees attain full status in one or two years, depending on the job — unless the agency they work for takes steps to dismiss them, which usually involves citing poor performance.Under the executive order, whose implications were outlined in a White House fact sheet, probationary employees will only attain full status if their managers review and sign off on their performance.“This is a very big step,” said Donald F. Kettl, professor emeritus and the former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. “The administration has been looking for ways to cut probationary employees, and this puts more power in the hands of agency managers.”Probationary workers can range from young people entering the work force to longtime employees promoted to new positions. Many probationary employees are highly skilled, were recruited for specific roles and have been vetted throughout the government’s hiring process.Tens of thousands of probationary workers targeted by the Trump administration’s cuts have been in limbo for months. Most are on administrative leave and are getting paid, but have no indication of how long that will continue.Mr. Kettl said that the executive order Mr. Trump issued on Thursday suggested that the administration had learned some lessons from the court challenges to its mass firings.Once the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources arm, formally issues the new policy, the government will be in a better legal position to fire probationary employees, he said. More

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      Elon Musk Backs Away From Washington, but DOGE Remains

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      As Elon Musk sought to reassure Wall Street analysts on Tuesday that he would soon scale back his work with the federal government, the strain of his situation was audible in his voice.The world’s richest man said that he would continue arguing that the Trump administration should lower tariffs it has imposed on countries across the world. But he acknowledged in a subdued voice that whether President Trump “will listen to my advice is up to him.”He was not quite chastened, but it was a different Mr. Musk than a couple months ago, when the billionaire, at the peak of his power, brandished a chain saw onstage at a pro-Trump conference to dramatize his role as a government slasher.Back then, Mr. Musk was inarguably a force in Washington, driving radical change across the government. To the president, he was a genius; to Democrats, he was Mr. Trump’s “unelected co-president”; to several cabinet secretaries, he was a menace; and to G.O.P. lawmakers, he was the source of anguished calls from constituents whose services and jobs were threatened by cuts from his Department of Government Efficiency.As Mr. Musk moves to spend less time in Washington, it is unclear whether his audacious plan to overhaul the federal bureaucracy will have lasting power. The endeavor has already left an immense imprint on the government, and Mr. Musk has told associates that he believes he has put in place the structure to make DOGE a success. But he has still not come close to cutting the $1 trillion he vowed to find in waste, fraud and abuse.Elon Musk and President Trump looked at new Tesla car models at the White House in March.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      DOGE to Dismantle Millennium Challenge Corporation

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      The Trump administration has begun dismantling a small independent agency that aids the economic development of poor but stable nations, according to five people familiar with the matter.Employees for the agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, were told in an email that they would be offered early retirement or deferred resignation after visits last week from Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting team, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.“We understand from the DOGE team there will soon be a significant reduction in the number of MCC’s programs and relatedly the agency’s staff,” read an email sent to staff on Tuesday by the acting chief executive. Staff members were given until Tuesday to decide whether to accept an offer to step down or have their employment terminated as soon as May 5, according to the email.The White House declined to comment Wednesday on the planned cuts at the agency.Mr. Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has in recent weeks moved to gut several federal agencies and entities that work on foreign aid and development projects. That includes the U.S. African Development Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which would shrink to just the legally required 15 positions after employing about 10,000 people before the start of the Trump administration.The Millennium Challenge Corporation is much smaller — roughly 300 employees, mostly in Washington, with about 20 people in offices overseas. But like U.S.A.I.D., it is slated to be reduced to the minimum required by law, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about internal conversations.The agency, established by Congress in 2004, was conceived by President George W. Bush as a way to aid poor nations while holding them accountable for using U.S. funds responsibly. The agency’s annual budget is a relatively modest $1 billion. It provides grants directly to foreign governments for development projects, including ones aimed at limiting the influence of China in Asia and Africa.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Government Watchdog Drops Inquiries Into Mass Firings of Probationary Workers

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      The independent government agency charged with protecting federal workers’ rights will drop its inquiry into the more than 2,000 complaints that the Trump administration had improperly fired probationary employees, according to emailed notices received by five workers and reviewed by The New York Times.The agency, the Office of Special Counsel, told affected employees that it had concluded that it could not pursue the claims of unlawful termination in part because they were fired not for individual cause, but en masse as part of President Trump’s “governmentwide effort to reduce the federal service.”The decision effectively eliminates one of the few avenues government employees had to challenge their terminations. It comes as Mr. Trump has forced out the office’s leader and replaced him for now with a loyal member of his cabinet, Doug Collins, the secretary of veterans affairs.The office is charged with protecting whistle-blowers from retaliation, which is the reason for its independent status and a Senate-confirmed leader. But it also scrutinizes other employment-related issues, including investigations into claims of prohibited personnel practices, or PPPs, such as discrimination, nepotism or an attempt to coerce political activity.Reached for comment, the Office of Special Counsel declined to say how many of the more than 2,000 fired probationary employees with pending complaints actually received the notice.Experts in federal employment law said the justifications to end the investigations were baffling at best.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Temporarily Halts Mass Firings at Consumer Bureau

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      One day after the Trump administration sent layoff notices to the vast majority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s workers, a federal judge temporarily blocked the action and ordered a hearing to determine whether the attempted mass firing violated an injunction she imposed last month.In a brief court session Friday morning, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington pressed Justice Department lawyers for details about layoff notices sent Thursday to nearly 1,500 of the consumer bureau’s 1,700 workers. The messages told workers that they would lose access to their email accounts and work systems on Friday evening.Judge Jackson issued an oral order, followed by a written one, barring the government from carrying out that plan until at least April 28, when she plans to hold an evidentiary hearing on the issue. Her ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the consumer bureau’s staff union and other parties.“Once again, the court is confronted with evidence that gives rise to concerns that there will be no agency standing by the time it gets to consider the merits,” she said in her written order.Russell T. Vought, director of the White House budget office, became the consumer bureau’s acting director in early February and immediately began dismantling the agency — which cannot be closed without congressional action. Judge Jackson issued an injunction last month freezing those actions, saying that she wanted to make sure the agency existed long enough for courts to evaluate whether Mr. Vought’s actions were lawful.One week ago, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pared back Judge Jackson’s order and said Trump officials could fire workers whom they decided — after a “particularized assessment” — were not needed to fulfill the agency’s legally mandated responsibilities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mass Layoffs Hit Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

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      The Trump administration sent layoff notices on Thursday to a large swath of employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, just days after a federal appeals court pared back an injunction that had prevented the agency’s leaders from carrying out plans to fire nearly all of the bureau’s workers.The full scope of the cuts was not immediately clear, but by late afternoon, hundreds of workers across all of the agency’s major divisions had received reduction-in-force notices. Fired employees were told they would lose access to their email accounts and the agency’s work systems on Friday evening.A legal filing Thursday evening by the consumer bureau’s staff union estimated that the terminations could hit as many as 1,500 of the bureau’s 1,700 employees. “Entire offices, including statutorily mandated ones, have or soon will be either eliminated or reduced to a single person,” the union said in its filing to the Federal District Court in Washington.Representatives of the consumer bureau did not respond to a request for comment.The bureau, which was created by Congress in 2011, monitors banks and other lenders. Since it was established, the watchdog agency has returned $21 billion to defrauded consumers through refunds and debt cancellation, according to government figures.On Wednesday, Mark Paoletta, the agency’s chief legal officer, sent an all-staff memo laying out new priorities. The bureau will significantly reduce its enforcement and compliance examination work, and “deprioritize” oversight of student loans, medical debt, digital payments and peer-to-peer lending, he wrote.Russell T. Vought, the White House budget office leader who is also the consumer bureau’s acting director, has frozen nearly all of the agency’s activity and sought to eliminate almost all of its staff.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      DOGE Cuts Hobble Office That Would Aid NASA and SpaceX Mars Landings

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      The Astrogeology Science Center, which has helped astronauts and robots reach other worlds safely, is facing a substantial number of job reductions.An office in an obscure corner of the federal government that NASA has relied on to safely land astronauts on the moon and robotic probes on Mars is facing pressure to cut its tight-knit team of experts by at least 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the mandate.The thinning of the staff has already started at the Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., the people said, the result of an assortment of voluntary resignation offers put forward by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by the billionaire Elon Musk. More employees are expected to be laid off in the coming weeks, following a new open call for early retirements and resignations on April 4. The office, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey under the Department of the Interior, has been subject to the cost-cutting efforts initiated in a mass email that Mr. Musk’s team sent across the federal government in January.Representatives for the Interior Department, the U.S.G.S. and the astrogeology center did not reply to requests for comment on the staff reductions or their potential ramifications.The cuts could affect crewed missions to Mars in the future, a key goal of Mr. Musk, who founded SpaceX. He has said he conceived of the company to make human life multiplanetary.Matthew Golombek, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the selection of landing sites for multiple probes to Mars, described the Astrogeology Science Center’s precision mapping as “the gold standard that basically everyone in the community uses.”At the start of the year, the office had 53 employees. Eight are already set to leave, with more encouraged to consider the latest offer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More