
President Donald Trump has announced that his administration is moving forward with plans to overhaul the employment classifications of a significant portion of the federal workforce, a change that could dramatically reduce job protections for career government employees.
In a post shared on social media, President Trump said the new classification, dubbed “Schedule policy/career,” will apply to federal employees who are involved in policy-related work.
“The president argued that the measure will help streamline government operations and ensure that the federal bureaucracy is “Finally run like a business.”
Saturday Telegraph reports that the announcement formalizes an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office, January 20, and is expected to expand political influence over the 2.3 million-member federal workforce by making many positions effectively “at will,” meaning employees could be dismissed with little recourse.
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Policy experts warn the implications could be sweeping. Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, noted that the new classification could apply to a large share of federal employees.
“By deeming anyone involved in policy as part of this new category, the pool of people that could potentially be fired expands enormously, because nearly everyone in government touches policy in one way or another,” Moynihan said.
This move echoes Trump’s controversial 2020 directive known as “Schedule F,” which aimed to reclassify many career civil servants at the end of his first term a measure swiftly rescinded by President Joe Biden upon taking office in 2021.
At the time, it was estimated that at least 50,000 federal employees could have been impacted.
Moynihan cautioned that the scope of the new order could prove even broader, with the potential to reclassify “hundreds of thousands” of federal workers, clearing the way for mass dismissals.
Reports indicate that since Trump’s return to office, at least 260,000 federal employees have either been terminated, accepted buyouts, opted for early retirement, or are slated for separation.
The reclassification effort comes amid the administration’s broader campaign to shrink the size and cost of the federal government — a push that has seen collaboration with tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The move has sparked sharp criticism from labor unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, which counts roughly 800,000 members.
“President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement.