type: timeline_event Federal agencies across the government dismissed approximately 62,530 workers in the first two months of 2025—a 41,311% increase compared to the 151 terminations during the same period in 2024, according to analysis by the Partnership for Public Service and Government Executive. The mass firings accompanied approximately 154,000 additional workers accepting the administration's Deferred Resignation Program buyouts. Together, the terminations and voluntary departures represented the most dramatic reduction in the federal civilian workforce since the post-World War II demobilization.
The agencies hit hardest included the Interior Department (approximately 2,300 terminations), the Forest Service (over 2,400), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (over 100), and the Small Business Administration (over 100). The patterns were not random: agencies focused on environmental protection, consumer financial regulation, and public lands management faced disproportionate cuts. Simultaneously, the administration revived and expanded Schedule F, an executive order reclassifying up to 50,000 positions previously protected by civil service rules as "at will" political appointments subject to dismissal without cause.
The Washington Post reported that career officials described receiving termination notices without cause or explanation, often via email, after decades of public service. Federal employee unions filed multiple lawsuits challenging the mass terminations, arguing that many violated civil service statutes, collective bargaining agreements, and due process requirements. Courts issued temporary restraining orders in several agencies, creating a patchwork of legal protections that varied by agency and employee category. The combination of mass firings, buyouts, and Schedule F reclassifications represented a systematic effort to dismantle the professional civil service built over a century following the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, replacing career expertise with political loyalty as the central criterion for federal employment.