President Donald Trump of the United States announced on Friday a significant shift in how federal workers will be classified going forward.
Sharing the update on social media, Trump revealed that from now on, government workers involved in policy-related duties will fall under a new classification: “schedule policy/career.”
He stated that this change is part of a broader effort to bring a business-like approach to the management of the federal government.
This move is a direct implementation of an executive order signed on his first day back in office, January 20. It is expected to reduce job security for a substantial portion of the 2.3 million federal employees, effectively turning many into at-will workers.
Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, noted that by categorizing nearly all policy-involved roles under the new label, the scope of who could be dismissed has grown significantly, since policy influences most government positions in some capacity.
This development echoes a similar initiative Trump pursued at the close of his first term—the creation of Schedule F—which was later revoked by President Joe Biden when he assumed office in 2021.
At the time, experts estimated that the Schedule F designation placed around 50,000 federal workers at risk of dismissal.
Moynihan now warns that the current order casts an even wider net, potentially reclassifying hundreds of thousands of federal roles before terminations commence.
Reports suggest that since Trump resumed office, more than 260,000 federal employees have either been dismissed, opted for early retirement, accepted severance packages, or are already set to be let go.
This wave of restructuring is aligned with Trump’s partnership with tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency in their ongoing effort to streamline and reduce the federal workforce.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees—the largest union representing federal workers, with 800,000 members—strongly criticized the decision.
“President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on,” Kelley said.