The United States Government on Friday sacked no fewer than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans.
This followed the campaign by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the US bureaucracy.
It was gathered that workers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated in a drive that so far has largely but not exclusively targeted probationary employees in their first year on the job who have fewer employment protections.
According to the White House, the sackings are in addition to the roughly 75,000 workers who have taken a buyout that Trump and Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily.
Trump had said that the federal government is too bloated and too much money is lost to waste and fraud.
The government has some $36 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for reform.
However, according to congressional Democrats, Trump is encroaching on the legislature's constitutional authority over federal spending, even as his fellow Republicans who control majorities in both chambers of Congress have largely supported the moves.
The speed and breadth of Musk's effort is said to have produced growing frustration among some of Trump's aides over a lack of coordination, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
In addition to the job reductions, Trump and Musk have tried to gut civil-service protections for career employees, frozen most US foreign aid and attempted to shutter some government agencies such as the US Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CFPB almost entirely.
Almost half of the probationary workers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others at the National Institutes of Health are being forced out.
In the same manner, the US Forest Service is firing around 3,400 recent hires, while the National Park Service is terminating about 1,000.
Similarly, the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service is preparing to fire thousands of workers next week, two people familiar with the matter said, a move that could squeeze resources ahead of Americans' April 15 deadline to file income taxes.
Comments