Massive Federal Job Cuts: Trump & Musk Lead Crackdown, 10,000 Workers Laid Off

Washington DC: More than 9,500 workers who handle everything ranging from federal lands to military veterans care were fired on Friday as part of US President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk’s bid to cut down bureaucracy in America radically.

The employee termination drive has so far seen workers at the Departments of Interior, Energy, Veteran Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services being targeted, with many of them, though not exclusively, being probationary staffers in their first year on the job and having lesser employment protections.

Some agencies have even been shut down in essence, including one as the independent watchdog the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where the cuts also affect the fixed-term contract workers.

Meanwhile, the tax-collector agency, Internal Revenue Service, is also preparing to lay off thousands of workers next week, Reuters reported citing two people familiar with the matter. This could be a move to squeeze resources ahead of the April 15 deadline for Americans to file income taxes.

According to the White House, the recent layoffs are in addition to the 75,000 workers who took up Trump and Musk on their buyout option to leave voluntarily. This is equivalent to about 3 per cent of the 2.3 million civilian workforce.

President Trump has said that the federal government is too deep in debt, saying that too much money has been lost to waste and fraud. There is some $36 trillion in debt along with a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is a dual agreement on the need for reform in the federal government.