Talk:2025 United States federal mass layoffs

Should the table have a column for rescinded layoffs?

I added a section about the rescission of some layoffs, but am wondering if there should be a column about this in the table, or perhaps a Notes column for diverse notes as needed. For example, 950 employees with the Indian Health Service received layoff notices that were rescinded hours later, so I haven't added this to the table. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:0o, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

If you have the time tO do it, why not? Arbeiten8 (talk) 00:19, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Related lawsuits

I added a section on lawsuits related to the layoffs, but so far have only added one of them. The NYT has a lawsuit tracker that list several others. Since this article is about mass layoffs, only some of the lawsuits listed in the "Civil servant firings" section of that tracker will be relevant here; others are lawsuits from people who were laid off individually rather than en masse. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

DEI note at the top

Hiya! Could we have a note at the top saying that this is not the article about the DEI purge and that for the DEI purge, a reader should go to Executive Order 14151? Thank you! Snokalok (talk) 19:32, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that make sense. There may be some overlap on this article with DEI firings. However, the EO article is the primary place for that content. Jumplike23 (talk) 19:45, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Firings

These are by-and-large firings for cause (without a cause actually given and in spite of positive performance reviews in most cases) rather than layoffs. The word "layoffs" gives a very different impression vs what is occurring. Master of Time (talk) 00:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I would support changing it in title and elsewhere. Jumplike23 (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Trump has fired some specific individuals (e.g., ~18 Inspectors General, several prosecutors who worked with Jack Smith, two EEOC commissioners, the chair and general counsel of the NLRB), but the mass layoffs aren't firings for cause. They've targeted probationary workers specifically because they can be laid off without cause. The "deferred resignation" offer is also distinct from both firing and being laid off. RSs are sometimes using both terms as if they're synonyms, but being fired for cause vs. laid off affects eligibility for unemployment. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

"mass removals of employees?" It's more of a mouthful but it covers it more accurately Snokalok (talk) 15:31, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

This is inaccurate. The probationary employees were sent termination letters stating that they were released for not being up to the task basically. Firings for cause. Even if the administration is trying to mask them as layoffs. Actual layoffs would normally go through a RIF process wherein they get severance, but nothing of the sort is happening here. Master of Time (talk) 02:39, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

The government can pretend that they're firings for cause, but they aren't. My state's labor dept. FAQs say that many of these former employees are eligible for Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE), which is not the case if they're truly fired for cause. But it's fine with me to reconsider; we should follow RSs rather than our own interpretations of it. For better or worse, they use various terms: laid off, fired, terminated, separated, ... I'm not sure which is used most often. FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:10, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Musk

In every single reliable source that I've seen, Musk is described as "an advisor" or "a senior advisor", but never "an informal advisor." Bearian (talk) 13:56, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Please include dates of events

Too few dates are given for the firings/layoffs/other events in this article. As we write, let's please not forget to include this important information. Thanks. PRRfan (talk) 01:57, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Given how quickly the numbers are changing, how should it be represented?

For example, as of March 10, 2025, Newsweek reports that the number of federal employees fired has surpassed 62,000, but as of March 14th, a federal judge has said many of them need to be re-instated.

I'm concerned that the number currently on the article page (30,000 as of Feb 22), which while correct when it was written, gives an inaccurate impression of the current state. Wcmaney (talk) 00:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Relation to "retire all government employees"

This appears to have a relationship to the concept of RAGE (retire all government employees), an idea defined by Curtis Yarvin, a "'neoreactionary' thinker" influential on figures such as Musk and Vance. (See: Curtis Yarvin § Dark Enlightenment & Response to the Department of Government Efficiency § Connection to authoritarianism.) 1101 (talk) 06:59, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

A Blogger blog post dated 2008 by Moldbut/Yarvin doesn't need to be here. Any linkage to NRx is tenuous at best despite what The Guardian might express in an opinion piece, Talib1101. I removed the Blogger link and blog tagline about fascism that you included. lol at "CEO Monarch". I wonder who that would be? Curtis Yarvin perhaps? He was a Biden voter in 2024.--FeralOink (talk) 16:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

It's tagged "Far right (US)", labelled "Profile", and in the "us-news/" directory. I don't know what makes you say it's an opinion piece. As for the CEO, I think that would be Musk, not Yarvin, Biden, or Trump. Musk is, in fact, a CEO, and he has also fired tens of thousands of federal employees. He also has ideas about a tech-dominated future that align with Yarvin's. I'm not claiming Yarvin is pulling the strings behind the scenes like some puppeteer. His ideas were clearly stated as hypothetical. But Vance does seem to cite Yarvin directly as an influence on DOGE. To me, that's significant. To you, that's something that should be dismissed with dripping incredulity?

There's this guy, Curtis Yarvin. Who's written about some of these things. A lot of concerns that said we should deconstruct the administrative state. We should basically eliminate the administrative state. And I'm sympathetic to that project. But another option is that we should just seize the administrative state for our own purposes.

— J. D. Vance (2021)

But go ahead and laugh about it, if you insist.

1101 (talk) 03:23, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

"As of February 22, 2025, about 30,000 workers had been laid off or fired" (but it's April 2025)

The current version of this article (as of April 2, 2025) states that "As of February 22, 2025, about 30,000 workers had been laid off or fired," but it's April 2025. Can this number be updated? 98.123.38.211 (talk) 01:49, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

to 200,000? And do you know why it says "laid off or fired"? What's the difference? 1101 (talk) 14:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done Never­mind, that was an opinion article. It also said "reported" but it wasn't clear by whom. Anyway, I've updated it to a number I trust. Let me know if that satisfies your request. 1101 (talk) 15:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for catching that, 1101. You're right about the opinion piece. I, for one, am satisfied with the number you trust. It is the most current to the best of my knowledge.--FeralOink (talk) 16:10, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

216,000

A small jump:

https://www.businessinsider.com/number-workers-fired-doge-trump-musk-challenger-2025-4

I corrected the first sentence of the lead accordingly.

Other editors might wish to look at the report, and the complementary citation:

https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-agencies-musk-doge-targeted-list-2025-2

I don't think this has been cited.

Thanks for having worked on the page! Selbsportrait (talk) 05:40, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

No, don't do that. Read the content. It says, "The DOGE office has not confirmed specific numbers of layoffs, meaning the report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas...". BusinessInsider also says in the link provided that the Challenger, et al. are a "global outsourcer" and their report was printed sometime in March. This isn't sufficiently WP:RS to make changes to the article without discussion.--FeralOink (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Shouldn't we also mention the tens of thousands of federal employees that were cajoled, manipulated, or coerced into taking buyouts via threatening emails? The end result is the same: they're gone. The total number of federal employees that are gone (whether due to firings, layoffs, or coerced buyouts) does seem to be much higher than 60,000, and people rely on us to have the most encyclopedic coverage available. 98.123.38.211 (talk) 02:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Don't rely on Government Executive magazine as a source for an article about government layoffs

Sources such as GovExec and Defense One should be used sparingly or not at all for this article. They are clearly biased AGAINST laying off government employees thus WP:NPOV is a concern. I noticed a lot of redundant source citations to both publications. Please don't use Rolling Stone as a source for this article per WP:RSN. FeralOink (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:NPOV doesn't say not to use biased sources. The policy is about the article as a whole, not about any specific source, and if you think that the article as a whole is inconsistent with WP:NPOV, the best way forward is to add content sourced to RSs that reflects missing viewpoints. As for Rolling Stone, I think the RSN assessment needs to be reviewed, but that's a longer discussion there, not here. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)