Tuesday,
February 18, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 25
Reuters: President Donald Trump’s administration targeted bank regulators, rocket scientists and tax enforcers on Tuesday as it sought to fire thousands more federal employees in an unprecedented assault on the U.S. civil service.
With tax-filing season underway, senior officials at the Internal Revenue Service identified 7,500 employees for dismissal, with possibly more on the chopping block, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has swept through federal agencies slashing thousands of jobs since President Donald Trump became president last month and put Musk in charge of a drastic overhaul of government.
The White House has not said how many people it plans to fire and has given no numbers on the mass layoffs so far. The information to date has come from employees of federal agencies.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which oversees banks, said it has fired an unknown number of new hires, according to an email seen by Reuters. The cuts could potentially worsen staffing problems at a 6,000-person agency where more than one in three workers are eligible for retirement.
Roughly 1,000 new hires, including rocket scientists, at NASA were expected to be laid off on Tuesday as well, according to two people familiar with the U.S. space agency’s plans, with more cuts possible.
“People are scared and not speaking up to voice dissent or disagreement,” said one employee at the 18,000-person agency who spoke on condition of anonymity.
At the IRS, that includes 7,500 involved in tax enforcement and compliance, but not those deemed essential for the April tax filing season, according to a person familiar with the matter. The tax-collecting agency could be asked to trim its 100,000-strong workforce further, the source said.
