President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order expanding the reasons agencies may fire probationary employees, a group the administration has sought to dismiss en masse as part of efforts to shrink the federal workforce.
Workers in their probationary periods are generally those who have been hired or promoted within the past year or two. While they have fewer civil service job protections, they can only be dismissed for reasons of performance or conduct.
Recently, several judges have ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary employees fired for reasons of “poor performance” that one judge called “a total sham.” Those orders have since been paused.
Thursday’s executive order says that agency chiefs may dismiss probationary workers recently hired by the federal government by declaring that the agency does not need them to meet its needs, advance its interests, or improve its efficiency.
The directive also requires agencies to affirm the need for a probationary employee in order to retain them at the end of their term.
“For example, when the last workday is a Friday and the anniversary date is the following Monday, a probationer will be separated before the end of the tour of duty on Friday if their agency does not make the requisite certification that their continued appointment advances the public interest,” according to the order.
This latter step follows proposals that predate Trump’s second term. In 2023, the Office of Personnel Management had recommended that supervisors should decide whether to keep or fire a probationary worker.
The order also requires agencies to identify all of their employees in probationary periods that end in 90 or more days from its enactment. It directs agency leaders to certify in writing that their continued employment would advance the public interest.
Earlier this week, a federal judge ordered agencies to inform their fired probationary workers that they were not removed due to their performance. The Office of Special Counsel, whose head Trump recently fired, also decided to drop the cases of such terminated employees who had appealed their firings to the watchdog agency.
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