Unlocked is a new series focused on explaining U.S. federal government systems, structures, and processes. The series is produced by The Journalist’s Resource and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, where JR is housed.
The opening months of President Donald Trump’s second term have been marked by announcements, executive orders and speeches that have upended many of the formal procedures and established norms structuring federal government operations for decades.
Among these, mass layoffs of federal workers that have aimed to slash the workforce of Cabinet-level agencies. Layoffs beginning in February targeted probationary employees — typically early-career workers in their first year of federal service with little legal recourse for appeal.
In February, thousands of employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development were laid off, a move that a federal judge found was likely unconstitutional.
In mid-March, the Education Department announced plans to cut nearly half its staff, while Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense also announced reductions in force of tens of thousands.
Reduction in force is a procedure for reducing agency headcount that is federally regulated. The firings of probationary workers were also technically a reduction in force, according to U.S. District Judge James Bredar in his March 13 order to reinstate the fired probationary workers.
“When the federal government terminates large numbers of its employees, including those still on probation because they were recently hired or promoted, it must follow certain rules,” Bredar writes. “Without advance notice and the opportunity to plan, organize, and reprogram necessary resources, states are harmed. In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice.”
In early April, the Supreme Court in an unsigned order allowed the firings of some probationary employees to continue. The upheaval within the federal workforce affects the entire U.S. — federal civilian employees work and live in towns, cities, suburbs and rural areas across the country, and even overseas.
About 15% of federal jobs are based in the Capitol area, 2% are in other countries and the remaining 83% are spread across the U.S., according to the Office of Personnel Management, the federal agency that journalists sometimes refer to as the government’s human resources department.
There have consistently been around 2 million federal civilian employees since the early 1990s, excluding Postal Service employees, according to an April 2024 report from the Congressional Budget Office. As of September 2024, the most recent month available from OPM, there were 2.3 million federal civilian employees, not including the Postal Service, with most working in Cabinet agencies.
The U.S. Postal Service is a quasi-governmental agency that is both a business and a public service and has been an “independent establishment of the Executive Branch,” since 1970. It has its own employee and labor relations manual and “a leadership structure like that of a private corporation, free of direct political control, and with significant authority over rates, operations, and employment,” according to a March 2023 USPS fact sheet.
Journalists covering recent mass firings of federal employees can offer audiences context on how unprecedented these actions are by conveying how federal human resource functions have worked historically. Here, we’ll unlock the legislation and regulations that define how federal employees have, until recently, typically been hired and fired. This snapshot will answer the following questions.
- What are the main job categories in the federal government employment?
- What are probationary periods?
- How does discipline and termination work for federal employees?
- What are the major laws to know related to hiring and firing federal workers?
What are the main job categories in the federal government employment?
Competitive service
Most federal employees are competitive service hires — about two-thirds of them, according to a January 2025 report from the Pew Research Center. The hiring process begins almost identically as the process for most private sector jobs: Candidates submit a cover letter and resume with their credentials, usually via USAJOBS.
Merit system principles, codified in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, aim for federal employee recruitment that is open and fair with the goal of achieving a workforce “from all segments of society” through an equitable application process. The act also established performance management processes meant to promote an efficient and effective federal workforce.
Most competitive service positions are open to the public and are posted on USAJOBS, though some agencies may post vacancies only to their own websites.
For competitive service roles, candidates may be scored using a points system, though candidate assessment procedures can vary by agency. Military veterans may be entitled to additional points for their service.
All federal employees take or affirm an oath of office, pledging to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” as codified in Title 5 of the U.S. Code, and separately affirm not to advocate “the overthrow of our constitutional form of government.”
Employees hired under competitive service usually must complete a three-year “career-conditional appointment,” which includes a one-year probationary period, before attaining career tenure. The primary benefit of career tenure is it allows employees to leave federal service and then return more easily than those who leave while still under career-conditional status.
Senior executive service
Senior executive service employees are experienced leaders who occupy roles just below top-level presidential appointees. They make up less than 0.5% of the federal workforce, “and they often serve as intermediaries between presidential appointees and career civil servants,” according to Pew.
The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act established the senior executive service as “a senior executive corps with solid executive expertise, public service values, and a broad perspective of Government,” according to a 2017 OPM report.
Senior executives may fill either permanent or temporary positions, or emergency positions “established to meet a bona-fide, unanticipated, urgent need,” according to the report.
These positions do not include presidential appointments that require Senate confirmation, positions in the legislative or judicial branches, or positions in law enforcement or intelligence gathering.
“There are two types of SES positions: career and non-career,” according to the Partnership for Public Service. “Career SES are the top level of career civil service leadership in the federal government, and non-career SES are a type of political appointment. Career SES account for the vast majority of the SES, with non-career SES limited by law to 10% or less of the total.”
Trump targeted career senior executive service employees — who typically serve across presidential administrations — in an executive action that was among a sweeping package of executive orders and actions he signed on the first day of his second term.
“The President’s power to remove subordinates is a core part of the Executive power vested by Article II of the Constitution and is necessary for the President to perform his duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’” the action reads. “Because SES officials wield significant governmental authority, they must serve at the pleasure of the President.”
The action directed Office of Personnel Management to issue, within 30 days, new senior executive performance plans “that agencies must adopt.” The OPM has since issued a memorandum describing a new appraisal system for senior executives that the agency has ordered must go into effect across the federal government by Sept. 30, 2026.
The memo also had at least one more immediate effect.
An element of previous versions of senior executive performance plans titled “Critical Element 2 – Leading People” instructed those executives to recruit, develop and retain a federal workforce that “reflects the nation, with the skills needed to accomplish organizational performance objectives while supporting workforce diversity, workplace inclusion, and equal employment policies and programs.”
As of March 7, that section now instructs senior executives to recruit, retain and develop, “the talent needed to achieve a high-quality workforce that reflects the nation, with the skills needed to accomplish organizational performance objectives,” according to the OPM memo.
The agency made the change, according to the memo, to comply with another Jan. 20 presidential action, titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.”
Excepted service
Excepted service positions generally are any roles in the executive branch that don’t fall under the competitive service or senior executive service. They are typically temporary appointments, up to four years, but some excepted service hires may be eligible to gain permanent, competitive service status with Office of Personnel Management approval. Exempted service hires made up about one-third of the federal workforce in January, according to Pew.
Agencies hire excepted service employees to roles that may demand confidentiality, specialized skills or backgrounds, or that are hard to fill for other reasons. Some agencies, like the FBI, make initial hires entirely through excepted service authority.
“Excepted service agencies set their own qualification requirements and are not subject to the appointment, pay, and classification rules in title 5, United States Code,” according to OPM.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the public face of the Department of Government Efficiency, which spearheaded the federal firings, is himself a special government employee, a type of hire not subject to the regular competitive hiring process, with an appointment term capped by law at 130 days per year. Per federal statute, special government employees do not have to be compensated. They are usually brought on because they offer specialized expertise to government officials working toward agency goals.
The majority of executive branch excepted service hires have historically been made through authorities granted via federal law or executive order. Excepted service employees may also be hired under what are called “schedules.” These are hiring authorities defined by federal regulation that allow agencies to bypass the usual competitive hiring process.
Title 5, Chapter 1, Subchapter B, Part 213 of the Code of Federal Regulations includes the schedules that govern certain types of excepted service hiring.
Schedule A excepted service hires do not handle confidential material, do not make policy, are not at the senior executive service level, and fill positions “for which it is not practicable,” to apply “the qualification standards and requirements established for the competitive service,” according to regulation.
There are numerous types of hires that can be made under Schedule A, including presidential appointments that don’t require Senate confirmation, and appointments for people with intellectual and physical disabilities.
Also under Schedule A, government agencies can hire people from the private sector with experience or skills useful toward executing agency and program goals.
“The reason that category exists is to promote cross pollination between the private sector and the public sector — to bring in, for a finite period of time, people with private sector experience,” says Mina Hsiang, who, from 2021 to 2025, served as administrator of the U.S. Digital Service, the former name of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Those hires “provide for a cross-fertilization between the agency and the private sector to foster mutual understanding,” according to regulation, and their appointments can last up to four years. For the former Digital Service, the provisions of Schedule A allowed them to attract talent that might have otherwise been unavailable.
“We did focus on making the hiring process faster, and we didn’t do that by cutting any steps, but we focused on making it faster,” Hsiang says. “That was also important for our competitiveness — all of the people we hired were very competitive in the private sector.”
Schedule B hires fill roles that may include handling confidential material or helping to make policy through a “close working relationship with the president, head of an agency, or other key appointed officials,” according to the regulation. These hires are not at the senior executive service level and are positions “for which it is not practicable to hold a competitive examination,” according to the regulation.
Both permanent and temporary federal workers hired through Schedule B can be found in the Departments of Defense, Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and others, according to the September 2024 data from OPM.
Schedule C hires may also handle confidential information and help make and approve policy recommendations. Hires made under this schedule are typically political appointees who support agency leadership, and they must be supervised by another political appointee.
“While some positions may be lower level, such as special assistant or confidential assistant, other Schedule Cs may hold significant authority within their agencies such as chief of staff, counsel or deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs,” according to the 2023 edition of the Presidential Transition Guide from the Center for Presidential Transition, which helps facilitate the turnover of presidential administrations.
After each presidential election, the U.S. Government Policy and Supporting Positions report, known as the Plum Book, lists more than 7,000 federal civil positions, including hires made under Schedule C.
Schedule D gives agencies the authority to hire high school, college and trade school students, as well as recent graduates, under Pathways Programs.
Administrative law judges, who adjudicate administrative disputes across executive branch agencies, are excepted service employees hired under Schedule E, as of 2018, based on an executive order signed by Trump that has not since been revoked. Agencies may “appoint as many administrative law judges as are necessary for proceedings required to be conducted,” according to federal law.
Schedule F has received attention from the news media since Trump created it by executive order in October 2020, months before leaving office after his first term.
President Joe Biden revoked Trump’s Schedule F order in January 2021 through his own executive order. In May 2024, the OPM issued final regulations aimed at protecting federal jobs from further executive action.
“Schedule F would have allowed political appointees to turn any career official with a policy advisory role into a political appointee, removing job protection for tens or even hundreds or thousands of public servants,” writes University of Michigan public policy professor Donald Moynihan in September 2021 in the Public Administration Review.
Trump reinstated Schedule F in January 2025 and directed OPM to rescind its 2024 regulation, as part of the executive orders he signed on the first day of his second term. One week later, the OPM issued final guidance to agency heads on how to implement the new Schedule F order.
The current executive order reinforces federal law prohibiting “discrimination based upon political affiliation,” according to the OPM guidance. “OPM will issue further guidance providing model rules that will satisfy these requirements. Agency deviation from this guidance will require authorization from the OPM Director.”
What are probationary periods?
Most federal civil employees are subject to a probationary period of at least one year as a trial period to ensure they are a good fit for the role, according to federal regulation. Employees entering the senior executive service for the first time are also subject to a probationary period.
“The probationary period is the final stage of the hiring process for employees in the competitive service,” according to OPM. “In most cases, agencies can swiftly terminate probationers who have not demonstrated their fitness for continued employment.”
(This language is unchanged since the second Trump term began, according to a December 2024 capture from the Wayback Machine, a web archiving project of the nonprofit Internet Archive.)
But senior executives coming from career tenure or career-conditional appointments are guaranteed non-senior executive positions in the civil service if an agency decides their performance was unacceptable during the probationary period and removes them from the senior executive service ranks.
In the mass layoffs that began in February, most agencies fired several hundred probationary employees, though 7,600 were fired from the Treasury Department, 5,700 from the Department of Agriculture and 3,200 from the Department of Health and Human Services, according to Reuters.
As of mid-March, agencies were trying to rehire some 25,000 probationary employees across the government after recent rulings from federal judges found the firings were illegal and ordered the employees be reinstated, with a U.S. district judge in San Francisco calling the separations a “sham.”
For more information on the rights of probationary employees, watch this March 2025 webinar hosted by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. It’s part of an explainer series covering pressing questions federal employees are facing under the second Trump administration.
How does discipline and termination work for federal employees?
Firings and discipline of federal workers have historically happened because of misconduct or poor performance, which is when an employee “fails to meet established performance standards,” according to federal law.
Before terminating employees, an agency may suspend, demote, or reduce their pay because of misconduct, poor performance or both. These are called adverse actions. Managers will often implement a performance improvement plan before taking adverse actions.
Agencies may have established grievance procedures for employees wanting to appeal an adverse action. Employees may be able to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board or file complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or Office of the Special Counsel.
The Merit Systems Protection Board is an “independent agency that hears and decides Federal employee appeals of certain personnel actions placed under its jurisdiction by law or OPM regulation,” according to this OPM glossary.
Employees typically have 30 calendar days to file an appeal after an adverse action is taken against them, and the agency has 20 days to respond. Employee and agency can bypass the appeals route if they agree to an alternative dispute resolution, which may include mediation or arbitration. An employee who loses an appeal before an MSPB administrative judge can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
In most instances, employees who are in their probationary period may only appeal firings to the MSPB that they claim were based on marital status, political affiliation, discrimination due to disability or other protected class, or whistleblowing.
Note that the facts of each particular instance matter greatly and will dictate how a federal employee is disciplined, and whether and how they decide to appeal.
What are the major laws to know related to hiring and firing federal workers?
Title 5 of the U.S. Code proscribes procedures for hiring and firing most federal civil workers, while Title 5 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations provides civil service rules and regulations, along with supplemental ethical standards for federal employees of specific agencies, in addition to the ethical standards applying to most federal workers.
- Employment and retention
- Employee performance
- Ethics in government
- Merit system principles
- Prohibited personnel practices
Title 5 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations
Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944
Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989
Relevant research
The Importance of Merit Principles for Civil Service Systems: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Sector
Gene A. Brewer, J. Edward Kellough and Hal G. Rainey. Review of Public Personnel Administration, June 2021.
The Administrative Presidency and Federal Service
Robert N. Roberts. American Review of Public Administration, February 2021.
The Practices of Performance Management and Low Performers in the U.S. Federal Government
Hyung-Woo Lee and Dong-Young Rhee. International Journal of Manpower, January 2020.
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