Federal agencies told to start planning for large-scale layoffs in Trump admin memo

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration directed federal agencies on Wednesday to prepare for mass layoffs, according to the heads of the White House budget and personnel management offices.

Budget Director Russell Vought and Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in a memo to the heads of these agencies that the federal government is “costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt.”

“At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens,” they said.

The memo notes that President Donald Trump has required “large-scale reductions in force” and in order to implement that, it calls on the heads of departments and agencies to submit the first phase of reorganization plans by March 13, which “shall focus on initial agency cuts and reductions.”

The plans should be grounded in the principles of ensuring “better service” for Americans, “increased productivity,” a “reduced real property footprint” and a “reduced budget,” the memo said.

It calls for agencies to consolidate areas that are “duplicative” and where “unnecessary layers exist” within management. It also calls for implementing technology that can “automate routine tasks” so that staff can “focus on higher-value activities.”

The memo specifically calls for the removal of “underperforming employees or employees engaged in misconduct.”

The heads of departments and agencies will have to submit plans for a second phase workforce reduction by mid-April. “That will outline a vision for more productive, efficient agency operations going forward and be implemented by the end of September,” the memo said.

That second part of the plan should include “any proposed relocations of agency bureaus and offices from Washington, D.C. and the National Capital Region to less-costly parts of the country,” it said.

Vought and Ezell explained that the memo doesn’t apply to positions that are necessary for law enforcement, national security, immigration enforcement, and U.S. military personnel. It also excludes the U.S. Postal Service and presidential appointees.

An official at a federal agency told NBC News that DOGE employees have created a spreadsheet of workers in the agency and have started going through and marking whether they are considered critical or not.

Thousands of probationary workers were already terminated from agencies and departments across the federal government in the last two weeks as a result of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort. 

Then, this weekend, workers were notified they would have to answer a Elon Musk-directed email to justify their jobs by listing what they accomplished in the last week; if they didn’t respond, he said, they would risk being fired.

At his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Trump backed Musk’s message, despite the conflicting directives workers received from some agency leaders who responded to it by telling employees they did not have to respond.

“Those people are on the bubble, as they say,” Trump said Wednesday about people who didn’t respond. “You know they maybe they’re going to be gone, maybe they’re not around, maybe they have other jobs, maybe they moved and they’re not where they’re supposed to be.”