Trump's Historic Overhaul: 50,000 Federal Workers Lose Job Protections in Biggest Civil Service Change in a Century

Trump Administration Finalizes Civil Service Overhaul

The Donald Trump administration has finalized its overhaul of the U.S. government's civil service system, giving the president the power to hire and fire an estimated 50,000 career federal employees. This move represents the biggest change to civil service rules in over a century.

Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, announced the latest development in President Trump's bid to drastically reduce the size of the federal government.

The Schedule F Overhaul

The overhaul, released by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), fulfills a presidential campaign promise to strip job protections from federal workers that Trump's team deems to be "influencing" government policy. Trump planned what was originally called the "Schedule F" overhaul late in his first administration, but his 2020 election loss prevented implementation.

Trump will have the power to select which government positions lose their job protections, according to the OPM statement. The new policy will be scrutinized by a federal judge, with federal worker unions and their allies having sued in January to stop the policy before it was fully developed.

Controversy and Legal Challenges

OPM director Scott Kupor said the shift "ensures taxpayer dollars support a workforce that delivers efficient, responsive and high-quality services." He claimed the final rule "explicitly prohibits political patronage, loyalty tests or political discrimination."

However, Democrats in Congress and some departing employees have challenged these claims. The Justice Department moved to fire career lawyers and FBI agents who had previously worked on investigations involving Trump, even though those duties were assigned.

The departures have caused backlogs and staff shortages, according to The Associated Press. Senior leaders have solicited job applications, with Chad Mizelle, acting general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, posting on social media: "If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an [assistant United States attorney] and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me."

Impact on Federal Workforce

The OPM estimated federal job losses of 317,000 during fiscal 2025. As a result, the U.S. federal workforce fell to its lowest level in at least a decade, according to government data published last month.

The progressive think-tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said that based on Department of Labor data, the federal civilian workforce at the end of 2025 had fallen to the smallest share of the overall employed U.S. workforce on record, with data going back to the 1930s.

Trump said last month at the White House that his administration had "cut millions of people from the federal payroll," adding: "I don't feel badly because now they're getting private sector jobs and they're getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money."

A billboard shown on June 5, 2025, at an intersection in Cleveland advertises job cuts at Cuyahoga Valley National Park that resulted from the DOGE initiative.

Conservative Agenda and Project 2025

Ahead of his re-election in 2024, the Heritage Foundation led conservative groups in contributing ideas to a hoped-for second Trump administration, with its Project 2025 plan promising to "dismantle the administrative state."

Data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) contradicts claims of a bloated public service. The U.S. recently had a share of public sector employment that was four percentage points lower than the OECD average, at slightly more than 14 percent.

Trump tapped billionaire CEO Elon Musk to help spearhead the downsizing effort through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though Musk later clashed with Trump and told a podcast in December the DOGE efforts were "a little bit successful."

Demonstrators rally during a news conference outside the Department of Labor headquarters on April 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C., in protest of widespread job cuts.

Changes to Whistleblower Protections

The OPM statement also revealed that the Trump administration is changing how long-standing legal protections that prohibit U.S. government agencies from retaliating against whistleblowers will be enforced.

Federal agencies will now be in charge of setting up job protections for their own employees who accuse them of wrongdoing, such as violating the law or wasting money. This represents a significant change from the past, when an independent office known as the Office of the Special Counsel handled whistleblower disclosures from most civilian federal workers.