Trump administration to make it easier to fire senior federal workers, WSJ reports

Feb 5 (Reuters) – The Trump administration is moving to make it easier to potentially dismiss career officials in senior government roles, a step that could affect about 50,000 federal workers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is expected to issue a final rule on Thursday creating a category for high-ranking career employees involved in carrying out administration policies, the report said. Workers in the category would be exempted from long-standing civil service protections that make federal workers difficult to fire, the WSJ said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. The White House and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration took aggressive steps to shrink the overall federal workforce last year.

Office of Personnel Management officials said the rule is aimed in part at “disciplining” federal workers who stand in the way of Trump’s policies, WSJ reported. It added that the new category applies to senior positions that are policy-determining, policymaking or policy-advocating in nature.

The federal government has long been seen as a stable employer, with staff commonly spending decades working inside U.S. agencies. Trump and his team sought to change that at the start of his second term, as he argued that the federal government was bloated and inefficient. 

“This effort ensures taxpayer dollars support a workforce that delivers efficient, responsive and high-quality services,” OPM Director Scott Kupor told Reuters last month. 

(Reporting by Devika Nair in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens and Philippa Fletcher)