In late February, President Donald Trump’s administration fired close to 24,000 probationary federal workers in the name of government efficiency.
In response to a judicial order that found the mass termination unlawful, the administration began rehiring those workers and reassigning them to a form of paid leave this week.
In a series of interviews, many federal employees said they are now in a state of limbo where they are being paid full wages and benefits, but they are forbidden to work. The employees work for a range of federal agencies, including the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. All spoke under the condition of anonymity, out of fear they or their colleagues could face retribution for sharing their opinions publicly.
“Although it’s a victory, and very vindicating to hear a judge say this was illegal,” said one reinstated NOAA employee, “it still seems like they’re doing what they can to avoid bringing us back to work.”
The NOAA employee was fired in late February alongside thousands of other probationary federal employees who were recently hired or promoted. On Monday, she received an email reinstating her to “paid, non-duty status” and awarding her retroactive pay for the two weeks since her termination. Other federal agencies began sending similar notices to their employees this week.
“It’s over a month of pay to tens of thousands of people to not work,” the NOAA employee said. “I mean, it sounds crazy. It should be known that the government is paying people not to work for months.”
Now, the NOAA employee said she and her colleagues are waiting to see how the federal court cases concerning the mass termination of probationary employees will play out as the Trump administration appeals them.
Attempting to fire probationary workers is just one of the strategies Trump’s administration is using to hack away at the size of the federal workforce. The administration has also offered seven months of paid leave to federal employees willing to resign immediately. Some of the federal bureaucracy’s most experienced employees have been offered early retirement packages, and other forms of severance payments are available to federal workers willing to voluntarily quit their jobs.
There is also a federal hiring freeze in place, preventing agencies from filling vacant positions.
The job cuts have thrown many federal facilities employees already considered understaffed into uncertain territory, where ongoing research projects may be abandoned and the staff could struggle to maintain core services.
Brandon Dunstan, a union official who represents workers at the National Weather Service, said some weather forecast stations have seen their staff reduced by 20% because of terminations, resignations, and unfilled vacancies.
“We’re going to continue our primary mission, our essential function, but there may be cutbacks in the amount of data and how quickly we can fix that buoy offshore,” Dunstan said. “There will be impacts on data collection which go directly into the models, which may result in a less accurate forecast.”
Many of the terminated probationary workers, he said, had recently received positive performance reviews.
Another wave of federal job cuts could be on the horizon. Leaders of federal agencies were ordered to draft reduction-in-force plans, which could bring further cuts to federal offices already affected by voluntary buyouts and terminations of probationary employees.
A National Park Service employee said many reinstated employees fear they may wind up fired again under the reduction in force plan, which is often referred to as an RIF.
“It’s definitely not clear whether anyone will actually return to the office, or whether they’re just going to put them on admin leave and then try to fire them in upcoming RIFs,” the parks service employee said.
One former EPA employee, who requested anonymity to protect his former colleagues from further job cuts, said his team had been targeted for downsizing years ago in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan. Now, he said, the conservative think tank’s proposed cuts are becoming a reality under the second Trump administration.
“They’re following that Project 2025 plan pretty closely,” the former EPA employee said.
The employee said many of his former colleagues are expecting further cuts.
“A lot of us are waiting for the official reduction in force plans,” he said.
