WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday began laying off more than 4,000 federal workers, according to a court filing, as the government remains shut down due to the inability of Congress to reach a funding deal.
Reduction-in-force notices are being sent to federal workers across seven departments, with the Treasury Department and Department of Health and Human Services being the hardest hit and accounting for more than half of the total layoffs, according to a new Justice Department filing.
The court filing is in response to a lawsuit over the shutdown layoffs from the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO.
Other affected agencies include the departments of Homeland Security, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The RIFs have begun,” White House budget director Russ Vought said on X earlier Friday, referring to “reductions in force” for workers.
While he didn’t provide details, a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget confirmed to NBC News that the layoffs had begun and said they will be “substantial.”
On Friday night, a senior administration official told NBC News "those RIFs are a snapshot in time and represent only where things were at the time of the court filing," suggesting the situation remains fluid.
OMB senior adviser Stephen Billy wrote in Friday’s filing that the affected agencies, in addition to others, “may actively be considering whether to conduct additional RIFs, including RIFs related to the ongoing lapse in appropriations.”
Billy also indicated that agencies are continuing to weigh layoffs, but “those assessments remain under deliberation and are not final.” He did not provide an estimate for any additional layoffs or the timing.
On Friday, notices were issued to an estimated 315 employees at the Commerce Department, 466 at the Education Department and 187 at the Energy Department. Roughly 1,100 to 1,200 employees at Health and Human Services were sent notices, in addition to 176 DHS employees and 1,446 workers at the Treasury.
An estimated 20-30 EPA employees were sent general notices Friday saying they may be affected by reductions in force in the future.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an arm of the Commerce Department, also previously sent notices to 126 employees when the government shut down on Oct. 1.
Democrats are pushing back on the layoffs, saying that a shutdown does not require President Donald Trump to fire workers or give him new powers to do so, arguing the White House is being vindictive.
A DHS spokesperson said that the layoffs at the department were occurring within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has been a major target of Trump’s since its then-director affirmed that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. “During the last administration, CISA was focused on censorship, branding and electioneering,” the DHS spokesperson said. “This is part of getting CISA back on mission.”
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the cuts at that department were focused on countering a “bloated bureaucracy” created under the Biden administration, adding: “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
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Prominent labor groups responded Friday by questioning the legality of the White House’s move and threatening legal action, including the AFL-CIO, which tweeted, “America’s unions will see you in court.”
AFSCME President Lee Saunders said the “mass firings are illegal” and will hurt families, vowing to “pursue every available legal avenue to stop” the administration’s action.
Federal employee unions had already sued the Trump administration over OMB’s threat to trigger mass firings of federal workers before the shutdown even began on Oct. 1. Plaintiffs in that ongoing lawsuit filed a supplementary motion on Friday asking for an immediate temporary restraining order preventing the OMB from ordering agencies to conduct reductions in force. It cited Vought’s post on X declaring that “The RIFs have begun.”
The White House’s move defies the wishes of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the Appropriations Committee chair, who oversees government funding.
“I’ve made very clear that I do not believe there should be firings of furloughed workers,” Collins told reporters on Wednesday.
Collins said Friday after the announcement, “I strongly oppose OMB Director Russ Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown caused by Senator Schumer.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, another Republican on the Appropriations Committee, also criticized the layoffs, saying in a post on X that they were “poorly timed and yet another example of this administration’s punitive actions toward the federal workforce.”
“The termination of federal employees in a shutdown will further hurt hard-working Americans who have dedicated their lives to public service and jeopardize agency missions once we finally re-open the government,” Murkowski wrote.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said, “Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this. ... They’re callously choosing to hurt people — the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”
“Here’s what’s worse: Republicans would rather see thousands of Americans lose their jobs than sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government,” Schumer said.
And Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said that “this administration has been recklessly firing — and rehiring — essential workers all year,” adding: “This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks.”
Vought’s announcement came one day after the Senate failed for the seventh time to pass either the Republican bill to keep the government open temporarily or the Democratic alternative that includes additional health care funding.
