White House Orders Agencies to Prepare ‘Large-Scale’ Staff Cuts

The White House told federal agencies to submit plans by March 13 for “large-scale reductions in force,” the first phase of an effort to drastically reduce the size of the US government.

The two-phase plan would also require agencies to overhaul their organizational charts by April 14 — and submit proposals to move offices out of Washington and into “less costly parts of the country.”

In total, the order lays the groundwork for what could be the most significant cuts of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The directive came via a memo Wednesday from Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, Charles Ezell. Teams from billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency at each agency would help execute the plans.

The memo didn’t provide any specific targets for job cuts, but said the “starting point” for the plans should be workers deemed non-essential during a government shutdown. About four in 10 federal employees have been historically furloughed when Congress fails to appropriate money for continued operations, with the remainder expected to work without pay until lawmakers approve new funding.

That means the looming deadline for Congress to pass a spending bill could be a key first test for federal employees. The government will shut down after March 14 — the day after agency reorganization plans are due — if Congress doesn’t approve new funding.

The mass firings would go into effect within three months of the plans being submitted, putting agencies on track to cut jobs by June. Reorganizations are to be implemented by Sept. 30.

Agency heads were also asked to identify whether entire groups under their purview should be eliminated or consolidated — or whether the agency they run should exist at all.

‘Mandate’ For Changes

Wednesday’s guidance puts some specifics behind an executive order Trump approved on Feb. 11, during a freewheeling Oval Office session in which Musk stood alongside him and defended the deep cuts.

“You couldn’t ask for a stronger mandate from the public,” Musk said. “The people voted for major government reform.”

Read more: Trump Directs Federal Job Cuts as Musk Defends Downsizing

The Trump administration has already tried a few tactics to reduce the workforce. Its “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer — which allowed employees to be paid through September if they resigned in February — got about 75,000 volunteers. The dismissal of probationary employees, who have less than a year or two of service, has eliminated thousands more, though no definitive government-wide numbers are available.

This reduction-in-force would go even further, eliminating employees by job category. The White House told agencies to eliminate any job functions not specifically required by law, and to remove “underperforming employees or employees engaged in misconduct.”

The memo specifically exempted five categories from the cuts. They included law enforcement and national security; all uniformed military personnel and commissioned officers in the US Public Health Service and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; political appointees; employees of the Executive Office of the President and the US Postal Service.

Also, cuts to agencies that provide direct services to citizens — like the Social Security Administration, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Veterans Health Administration — won’t go into effect until OMB and OPM certify that the reductions won’t hurt those services.

The instructions to agencies took on an unusually political tone.

“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public,” Vought and Ezell wrote. “The American people registered their verdict on the bloated, corrupt federal bureaucracy on November 5, 2024 by voting for President Trump and his promises to sweepingly reform the federal government.”