The Trump administration is seeking to finalize its overhaul of the federal government’s civil service system through a rule issued this week by the office of personnel management (OPM) to strip job protections from 50,000 civil service employees. Under the rule, the president would have the authority to fire and hire an estimated 50,000 career federal employees. On Trump’s first day in office on 20 January 2025, he issued an executive order to reclassify thousands of federal employees as political appointees. The largest union representing federal workers called the rule “a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service”. Stripping civil service protections has also been a central plank of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint.

Source: The Guardian February 06, 2026 06:31 UTC