The Trump administration sent layoff notices to thousands of employees across the executive branch Friday, according to a document filed with a federal court.
Nearly 200 Energy Department employees received layoff notices, and dozens of EPA employees were notified they could be laid off, according to the document filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The filing represents the Trump administration’s most detailed public accounting of its layoff plans across the federal workforce — a move the administration has blamed on the government shutdown. Critics of the administration contend that it is unlawfully using the shutdown as a pretext for layoffs.
Unions have asked the California district court to issue a temporary restraining order to block the administration from using the funding lapse as an opportunity to pursue mass layoffs of government workers.
About 187 employees at the Energy Department received layoff notices Friday, the court filing says. About 20 to 30 EPA employees received an “intent to RIF” notice telling them they may be affected by layoffs in the future, says the filing.
“EPA has not made a final decision as to whether or when to issue RIF notices to some or all of those employees at some point going forward and is currently deliberating regarding those potential plans,” the court filing says, referring to the “reduction-in-force” process used to lay off federal workers.
“EPA has not excepted employees to work on RIF-related activities,” the filing says.
Other agencies that issued layoff notices Friday are the Commerce Department (about 315 employees), Education Department (about 466 employees), Department of Health and Human Services (between 1,100 and 1,200 employees), Department of Housing and Urban Development (about 442 employees), Department of Homeland Security (about 176 employees) and Department of Treasury (about 1,446 employees).
The Interior Department was not included on the list of agencies where layoff notices were issued Friday.
Layoffs could also come soon to other agencies, the Trump administration told the court.
“Other Defendant agencies (in addition to some of those agencies identified above) are actively considering whether to conduct additional RIFs related to the ongoing lapse in appropriations,” the filing says.
Other “preexisting” layoffs are also in progress at federal agencies, the administration wrote. Those were undertaken prior to the funding lapse and aren’t included in the numbers released Friday.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump said “it’ll be a lot” when asked how many layoffs were coming. “It’ll be Democrat-oriented because we figure they started this thing,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought of “callously choosing to hurt people” with the layoffs.
“This is deliberate chaos,” Schumer posted on social media.
