U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leadership has reportedly been tasked with ranking probationary workers ahead of a likely executive order that would cut “thousands” of jobs within the department.
The requests, reported early Thursday afternoon by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal citing anonymous internal sources, appear to focus on probationary staff, who are generally in their first year or two of service and are easier to let go.
The White House on Thursday denied that an executive order related to HHS is coming, the WSJ reported.
During the earliest days of the term, White House officials had told federal agencies to compile lists of federal employees on probationary status and make recommendations on whether they should stay in their roles.
On Wednesday and Thursday, officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies asking managers to categorize these employees as mission-critical, important and not mission-critical, according to the Post. Those within the CDC appeared to be under more intense scrutiny, with at least one deadline for such rankings set for 11:00 a.m. Thursday.
The WSJ’s report corroborated the probationary employee categorization but added that the White House is “working on an executive order” that would give thousands of HHS workers the ax. Coming as soon as next week, but not yet finalized or guaranteed, it would set a percentage of employees that HHS agencies such as the CDC and the FDA would need to cut.
The HHS employs more than 80,000 people across its sub-agencies.
The reports landed as workers across the government faced down the deadline of a voluntary resignation offer. The buyout was communicated to the employees through an email titled “Fork in the Road”—reminiscent of a similar tactic employed by Elon Musk after purchasing Twitter—and floated pay through the end of September if they agreed to resign by midnight Thursday.
Roughly 40,000 workers, or about 2% of the entire civilian workforce, have reportedly taken the deal that federal worker unions argue is unlawful, due to federal funding running dry in March and the accompanying threat of layoffs should voluntary resignations fall short of the administration’s goal.
Thursday afternoon, three of those unions representing roughly 800,000 federal civil servants secured from the courts a temporary delay of the deadline until at least Monday, Feb. 10, pending further hearings on the buyout offer.