Roughly 5,400 probationary staff are anticipated to be fired from the Pentagon starting subsequent week.
Appearing Underneath Secretary of Protection for Personnel and Readiness Darin Selnick introduced the reduce of the workforce in an announcement on Friday night.
“We anticipate decreasing the Division’s civilian workforce by 5-8% to provide efficiencies and refocus the Division on the President’s priorities and restoring readiness within the pressure,” Selnick mentioned.
Selnick’s assertion continued, “We anticipate roughly 5,400 probationary staff can be launched starting subsequent week as a part of this preliminary effort, after which we’ll implement a hiring freeze whereas we conduct an extra evaluation of our personnel wants, complying as all the time with all relevant legal guidelines.”
On Thursday, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video to social media hinting on the upcoming layoffs.
Hegseth said it’s “not within the public curiosity to retain people whose contributions are usually not mission vital.”
A Message From @SecDef To The American Warfighter, And The American Tax Payer. pic.twitter.com/iRSPfrd6w0
— Division of Protection (@DeptofDefense) February 20, 2025
“Taxpayers need to have us take a extremely thorough take a look at our workforce prime to backside — and it will likely be prime to backside — to see the place we are able to discover and get rid of redundancy,” he mentioned.
The Hill reports:
“Whereas there isn’t any official determine accessible of the entire firings or layoffs, it’s identified that a number of thousand federal workers have been proven the door in President Trump’s first month of presidency, together with 1,000 from the Division of Veterans Affairs let go final week.”
