PNN – The continuation of US President Donald Trump and his chief adviser Elon Musk’s plan to shrink the federal government has thousands of employees worried about being fired and losing their jobs.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, citing Reuters news agency, So far, thousands of employees of various government agencies in the United States have been fired, many of whom were employees who were recently hired in departments such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, Education, and the Small Business Administration on a temporary and experimental basis.
Citing an official familiar with the Trump administration’s decision, this news agency added that officials from the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the hiring of federal employees, met with relevant agencies and advised them to fire temporary employees.
According to government data, about 280,000 of the 2.3 million federal civilian workforces have been hired in the past two years, most of who are still on probationary and temporary status and are easier to fire.
Trump claims that the federal government is too big and too much money is being wasted or swindled. The US federal government has about $39 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year.
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Trump’s Republican allies, who hold the majority in Congress, have widely supported Trump’s actions in this area, while Democrats say Trump has overstepped the country’s constitutional authority over the federal budget.
Critics have questioned Elon Musk’s apparent use of force to advance his goals. As the richest man in the world, Musk has tremendous influence in the Trump administration.
The layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau went beyond probationary employees, with some employees on fixed-term contracts, Reuters said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Trump and Musk claim they are committed to reducing bureaucracy in the federal government. They say that no one is accountable to the White House and that it is blocking Trump’s political initiative.
They have offered incentives to some federal employees to voluntarily quit, frozen foreign aid and tried to shut down some government agencies, including the Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The White House has announced that about 75,000 workers have signed up for voluntary retirement, which is just 3 percent of the civilian workforce.