Trump administration begins the layoffs of furloughed federal workers

The White House is making good on its threat to fire federal workers because of the government shutdown, with more than 4,000 federal employees being told they were being axed.

“The RIFs have begun,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote on X, referring to the reductions in force, or layoffs, of federal workers.

A budget office spokesperson said the reductions are “substantial.”

The White House referred questions about the specific agencies and number of employees being cut to OMB. President Trump said later Friday that “a lot of people” would lose their jobs.

“We’ll announce the numbers over the next couple of days, but it’ll be a lot of people, all because of the Democrats,” Mr. Trump said.

A lawsuit filed against OMB Friday revealed that the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and Treasury began issuing RIF notices Friday.

The number of employees who received them ranged from 176 employees at DHS to nearly 1,450 employees at the Treasury Department, the court filing said.

“Employees across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown,” Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

“HHS under the Biden administration became a bloated bureaucracy, growing its budget by 38% and its workforce by 17%. All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions,” he said. “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

An Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson also blamed Democrats for the layoffs, saying, “It’s unfortunate that Democrats have chosen to shut down the government and brought about this outcome. If they want to reopen the government, they can choose to do so at any time.”

OMB had directed agencies to look for reductions in force in a memo sent in late September, and Mr. Trump backed the idea.

The memo said agencies should look at employees in programs, projects or activities whose discretionary funding lapsed on Oct. 1 — the beginning of the fiscal year — that lack available alternative funding sources and are “not consistent with the president’s priorities.”

Roughly 750,000 non-essential federal employees are furloughed during the shutdown, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The layoffs were not unexpected. The administration repeatedly warned that the RIFs were coming.

Mr. Trump warned Tuesday that the government shutdown would result in federal workers losing their jobs.

“If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” he said.

The government shutdown entered its 11th day on Friday, with no signs of a resolution to the standoff in the Senate over funding.

Senate Democrats have been filibustering a House-passed temporary spending bill that would fund the government through Nov. 21, giving Congress time to work on long-term spending bills to cover the remainder of the fiscal year.

The government shut down Oct. 1.

The Democrats are demanding negotiations about adding $1.5 trillion to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies and other programs.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York condemned the firing of the federal workers.

“Russell Vought just fired thousands of Americans with a tweet,” he said in a statement. “Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this. They don’t have to do it; they want to. They’re callously choosing to hurt people — the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”

He also slammed Republicans, saying they would rather watch Americans lose their jobs than negotiate health care with Democrats to reopen the government.

Some Republicans also came out against the firings. Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said she “strongly” opposes the decision to lay off federal workers.

“I strongly oppose OMB Director Russ Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown caused by Senator Schumer,” Ms. Collins said in a statement.

“Regardless of whether federal employees have been working without pay or have been furloughed, their work is incredibly important to serving the public,” she added. “Arbitrary layoffs result in a lack of sufficient personnel needed to conduct the mission of the agency and to deliver essential programs, and cause harm to families in Maine and throughout our country.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, called the layoffs “poorly timed and yet another example of this administration’s punitive actions toward the federal workforce.”

“The termination of federal employees in a shutdown will further hurt hard-working Americans who have dedicated their lives to public service and jeopardize agency missions once we finally re-open the government,” she wrote in a post on X.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked this month why the layoffs would be necessary when they haven’t been in previous shutdowns, including during the 35-day shutdown in Mr. Trump’s first term. She said it’s because the president is focused on reducing the nation’s debt.

“We are $37 trillion in debt, and the federal government is currently shut down. There is no more money coming into the federal government’s coffers,” she said. “And as you’ve also seen since the beginning in January, this administration is focusing on waste, fraud and abuse, and so Democrats have given this administration an unenviable choice to have to take a look at the balance sheet and identify where these cuts and layoffs can be made.”

Labor unions decried the layoffs.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing more than 800,000 federal and D.C. government employees, called the move “disgraceful.”

“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “These workers show up every day to serve the American people, and for the past nine months have been met with nothing but cruelty and viciousness from President Trump. Every single American citizen should be outraged.”

“Federal workers are tired of being used as pawns for the political and personal gains of the elected and unelected leaders. It’s time for Congress to do their jobs and negotiate an end to this shutdown immediately,” he said.

AFGE, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, filed a lawsuit late last month challenging the threatened layoffs. It was filed in federal court in San Francisco.

The AFL-CIO also slammed the administration’s decision.

“Donald Trump shut down the government, choosing to lock workers out of their jobs instead of doing his,” the labor federation’s president, Liz Shuler, said in a statement. “As millions of workers miss paychecks and Americans open letters saying their health care costs are skyrocketing, the Trump administration is creating even more pain and chaos by moving to illegally fire thousands of federal workers today.”

The White House has other decisions to make while managing limited funds during the shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, told reporters the White House would “probably” move money around to pay active duty military troops who currently will miss a paycheck on Wednesday because of the government shutdown.

“I think to their credit, the White House has now for 10 days laid off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government,” he said. “But now that … people are going to start missing paychecks, this gets real. This gets real for families, a lot of military families who live paycheck to paycheck, a lot of American families who live paycheck to paycheck, who are federal employees.”

Mr. Thune said he expects the White House “to start making some decisions about how to move money around, which agencies and departments are going to be impacted, which programs are going to be impacted, which employees are going to be impacted.”

Projects across the country have been targeted in the shutdown. The Trump administration has put billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in New York and Chicago on pause, and billions of dollars in clean energy projects in 16 states have been outright canceled.

• Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.