Trump memo tells federal agencies how to conduct mass layoffs
The Trump administration moved forward Wednesday with its plans to conduct large-scale layoffs across agencies, the latest move to downsize the federal workforce.
The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management issued a memo to agency leaders with guidance on how to conduct their reductions in force, known as RIFs, and the reorganizations plans, taking another step to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order entitled “Implementing The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative.”
The memo comes as the Trump administration is conducting a multi-pronged effort to overhaul federal operations and shed employees. In less than six weeks, it has laid off tens of thousands of probationary workers, placed other employees on administrative leave, offered a deferred resignation package and ordered staffers to return to the office full time.
The moves, along with a confusing weekend demand that staffers list their activities of the past week, have ratcheted up the anxiety levels of many federal workers, who until now had felt they had some job security. The federal government has not conducted a widespread reduction in force since the Clinton administration in the 1990s.
According to Wednesday’s memo, the principles to guide the agencies include conducting “a significant reduction” in the number of federal workers by eliminating positions that are not needed and reducing federal property holdings and budget, as well as providing better service to Americans and increasing productivity, according to the memo.
RELATED LIVE-STORY
Trump holds first official Cabinet meeting of second term
The first phase includes submitting lists of agency divisions and employees performing functions not mandated by law or regulation who are not considered essential employees during government shutdowns. The plans should also include lists of all jobs categorized as essential, of agency divisions that provide direct service to Americans and of any statutes that establish the agency, as well as the tools the agencies plan to use to reduce their staffs.
Plus, agencies should provide suggestions for how to engage Congress to gain agreement on major restructuring efforts and on moving funds between accounts. The deadline for submitting the plans, which should include an implementation timetables, is no later than March 13.
In the second phase, OMB and OPM are asking for an outline of “a positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations going forward.” Those are due no later than April 14 and should be implemented by September 30.
The information requested includes an agency’s proposed organizational chart and confirmation that it has reviewed all employees’ job descriptions, recent performance reports, length of service and veterans’ status. OMB and OPM also want to know proposed relocations of offices away from the Washington, DC, metro area and plans to reduce costs and improve efficiency through technology.
Agencies’ plans should also include provisions of union collective bargaining agreements that could inhibit cost-savings and efficiency efforts and proposals to renegotiate those provisions. Also, agencies should provide justifications for excluding programs and divisions from the reductions, as well as areas for future large-scale layoffs.
And, as in the executive order, the memo notes that future hiring should be limited to one position for every four people who depart.
Exempted from this restructuring are positions in law enforcement, border security, national security, public safety and immigration enforcement, as well as the military and federal uniformed personnel, including the US Coast Guard. Also, the US Postal Service and the executive office of the President are not subject to the memo.
In addition, the guidance notes that any agencies or divisions providing direct services to citizens, such as Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ health care, should not implement any reductions until OMB and OPM certify that the plans would have a “positive effect” on delivering those services.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional details.
© 2025 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Up next
Most read
MORE FROM CNN
NEWS & BUZZ
RIF watch: See which agencies are laying off federal workers
The Defense Department plans to issue RIFs in the coming weeks for 5% to 8% of its civilian workforce. J. DAVID AKE/GETTY IMAGES
Sponsor Message
Stay Connected
Sponsor Message
Updated Feb. 27 at 4:10 p.m.
The Trump administration has given agencies a March 13 deadline to finalize their plans to slash their workforces through layoffs.
Not all agencies are waiting that long, however, and some have either already started sending out reduction-in-force notices or have explained their plans to do so. The upcoming layoffs are separate from the mass firings of probationary employees, which led to the removal of at least 25,000 workers. See our tracker of those firings here.
A President Trump executive order and subsequent guidance from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management has to plan for the “maximum elimination” of federal agency functions not required by law. As a starting point for the cuts, OMB and OPM said, agencies should focus on employees whose jobs are not required in statute and who face furloughs in government shutdowns—typically around one-third of the federal workforce, or 700,000 employees.
Agencies are expected to eliminate some offices wholesale and slash their regional offices across the country.
Here are the departments and agencies where Government Executive has confirmed RIFs have taken place or about to occur. We will update as we learn more. More in-depth reporting is linked where available:
Defense Department: Defense plans to issue RIFs in the coming weeks for 5% to 8% of its civilian workforce, or as many as 61,000 employees. It will fire 5,400 probationary employees as part of those cuts.
Environmental Protection Agency: RIFs had not yet begun at EPA as of Thursday, but President Trump said during a cabinet meeting that he expected 65% of the workforce, or nearly 11,000 employees, to be let go. An EPA spokesperson declined to verify that number, saying only that Trump and agency Administrator Lee Zeldin “in lock step” to find efficiencies in government and those efforts would include “organizational improvements to the personnel structure.”
General Service Administration: GSA has sent RIF notices to some employees in its Office of Human Resources Management and Office of Customer Experience and severe cuts are expected in the Public Building Service and elsewhere.
Housing and Urban Development Department: HUD has issued RIF notices to all employees in the Office of Field Policy and Management at the General Schedule-13 level and below, according to a memo obtained by Government Executive. The employees will be terminated May 18. HUD is expected to issue more widespread RIFs in the coming weeks, according to an employee briefed on the matter.
Office of Personnel Management: OPM, which is spearheading the workforce reduction effort across government, has sent RIF notices to at least its Office of Procurement Operations and communications staff. Dozens of employees were impacted.
Social Security Administration: SSA has shuttered two offices—its Office of Transformation and Office of Civil Rights—though for now employees there are on administrative leave and have not yet received RIF notices. SSA acting Administrator Leland Dudek is planning to lay off 7,000 employees in total, according to three employees familiar with the plans.
U.S. Agency for International Development: The Trump administration is in the process of shuttering virtually the entire agency and it has already sent RIF notices to nearly all of its 2,000 U.S.-based employees. Overseas staff are largely on administrative leave currently and are expected to receive RIF notices in the coming weeks.
See something we are missing? Share your experience with us:
Eric Katz: ekatz@govexec.com; Signal: erickatz.28
Sean Michael Newhouse: snewhouse@govexec.com; Signal: seanthenewsboy.45
Erich Wagner: ewagner@govexec.com; Signal: ewagner.47
Related articles
Agencies to deliver large-scale RIF plans in two weeks
Federal agencies are still firing probationary employees—most recently Veterans Affairs
NEXT STORY: Agencies to deliver large-scale RIF plans in two weeks
President Donald Trump delivers remarks during his first Cabinet meeting at the White House on Feb. 26, 2025. Trump issued an executive order earlier this month requiring staffing cuts and for agencies to work with the Department of Government Efficiency to implement them. ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES
Stay Connected
The Trump administration has given federal agencies until March 13 to deliver their plans to dramatically slash their workforces through layoffs as the Trump administration moves to the second phase of its initiative to cut federal employees.
The plans will focus on the “maximum elimination” of functions not required by law, Office of Management and Budget director and Office of Personnel Management acting Director Charles Ezell said in new guidance on Wednesday, and include a resulting “significant reduction” in employees. As a starting point for the cuts, Vought and Ezell said, agencies should focus on employees whose jobs are not required in statute and who face furloughs in government shutdowns—typically around one-third of the federal workforce, or 700,000 employees.
“Pursuant to the president’s direction, agencies should focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated while driving the highest-quality, most efficient delivery of their statutorily-required functions,” Vought and Ezell said.
Some agencies are already moving forward with their reductions in force. OPM itself, the General Services Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development have already sent out RIF notices to thousands of employees, and the Housing and Urban Development Department recently cautioned employees that layoffs are coming soon. President Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to slash 65% of its workforce, or nearly 11,000 employees.
OPM issued the guidance in response to President Trump’s executive order earlier this month requiring the cuts and for agencies to work with the Department of Government Efficiency to implement them.
The layoffs will be separate from the mass firings of probationary employees across government—largely those hired in the last one or two years—which marked the first phase of the workforce reduction plan. The Trump administration will also slash agency rolls through attrition, as it currently has a hiring freeze in place and will replace that in the coming months with a mandate that only one employee is hired for every four who leave.
OPM tasked agencies with eliminating duplicative program areas, consolidating management layers, reducing non-critical components and developing technological solutions to automate functions. They must also develop plans to eliminate regional offices not necessary for service delivery and to slash consultants and contractors.
Under current law, federal agencies must provide laid off employees 60 days notice before the terminations take effect. They can request a waiver from OPM to reduce that timeline to 30 days, which Vought and Ezell are encouraging them to do. Agencies should also consider requesting buyout and early retirement authority from OPM, they said.
In addition to the RIFs and attrition, OPM said agencies should fire their underperformers, continue evaluating their probationary workers and renegotiate their collective bargaining agreements to remove roadblocks to the cuts. Federal reduction-in-force procedures allow federal employees to appeal the layoffs to the Merit Systems Protection Board or, for bargaining unit staff, to pursue appeals through the grievance process.
By the March 13 deadline, agencies must lay out specific plans for their RIFs including the number of employees impacted and a timeline for sending out the notices. Agencies can start the process before that deadline, Vought and Ezell said.
Agencies will also deliver in their plans a list of all statutes defining their work, which components they plan to consolidate, which employees will be exempt from RIFs and a blueprint for discussing the efforts with Congress if required by law.
They will then deliver a second plan by April 14 that lays out their new organizational structure, any relocations of offices, subsequent RIFs, collective bargaining provisions that stand in the way of their efforts, technology deployments and how cuts will improve services for Americans.
Vought and Ezell noted that any agencies that provide direct services to Americans should not start laying off workers until receiving a direct sign off from OPM and the Office of Management and Budget. Any positions related to border security, immigration enforcement, law enforcement, national security and public safety are exempt from the cuts.
How are these changes affecting you? Share your experience with us:
Eric Katz: ekatz@govexec.com, Signal: erickatz.28
Sean Michael Newhouse: snewhouse@govexec.com, Signal: seanthenewsboy.45
Erich Wagner: ewagner@govexec.com; Signal: ewagner.47
NEXT STORY: Board agrees to pause firings for some feds, potentially upending Trump’s widespread terminations
