Trump executive order makes it easier for agencies to fire probationary employees

President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order expanding the reasons agencies may fire probationary employees, a group the administration has targeted with mass removals as part of its goal to shrink the size of the federal workforce. 

Workers in their probationary periods are generally those who have been hired or promoted within the past one to two years. While they have fewer civil service job protections, they can only be let go over performance or conduct. 

Recently, several judges have ordered that fired probationary employees be brought back, with one judge calling the administration’s reasoning of firing thousands of them for poor performance “a total sham.” Those orders have since been paused. 

Thursday’s executive order, however, lets agencies remove probationary workers who are new to the federal government based on the agency’s needs and interests and whether their continued employment would advance the agency’s organizational goals and efficiency. 

The directive also requires agencies to affirmatively decide whether to retain a probationary employee once the period ends. 

“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. 

Even prior to Trump’s second term, the Office of Personnel Management had recommended that supervisors proactively 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. 

A federal judge earlier this week mandated 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.