• In a Wednesday memo, Trump administration officials advanced a plan for federal staff reductions.
• The memo said departments across agencies should prepare to cut staff and reorganize by March 13.
• Federal workers told BI they were frustrated but not surprised by the planned restructuring.

President Donald Trump's administration officially announced its plan for federal staff reductions in a Wednesday memo, telling agencies to prepare to cut staff and reorganize their departments by March 13.

Federal workers who spoke with Business Insider after the memo was announced said the move was "crazy and illogical." Still, some were determined to continue working until they were removed from office.

The memo, sent by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, didn't identify specific targets for cutbacks, which they described as advancing the White House DOGE office efficiency initiatives. But during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump suggested as an example that as much as 65% of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency could be cut.

"As outlined in yesterday's memo to agencies, this administration has created a thoughtful, phased process to carry out workforce restructuring that will reduce unnecessary waste and bloat while continuing to deliver high-quality services to the American people," an OPM spokesperson said in a statement.

Representatives for the White House and OMB didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

"I think what is going on is unfair to us. I have been told my job is exempt, but I truly don't believe it," an employee from the Department of Veterans Affairs said. "I know that we are shorthanded but also don't trust the government or my supervisors here. I have seen nothing in writing. That scares me also."

One NASA employee described it as "ungenerous to the point of cruelty."

"Not only do they want people to lose their jobs, they want them to lose their jobs quickly," they said.

Another longtime federal worker, meanwhile, told BI they had "no faith that this will be fair or measured."

The memo outlines a timeline for most agencies — with exemptions for federal law enforcement, military, border security, and US Postal Service employees — to prepare and execute a layoff and reorganization strategy. Agencies must submit their restructuring plans by March 13 and "outline a positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations" by April 14, with an implementation deadline in September.

"My thought is, "Will I be out of a job come April?" one Department of Defense employee said. "At this point, conversations revolve around, if I exit the workforce, will I reenter it? As a military spouse, that is not a given."

"Throwing military families into financially unstable situations is a great way to thank them for their service — and their votes," the employee added.

The memo also requires field office operations to be consolidated or closed, which one employee of the Social Security Administration said would impact frontline offices that handle claims and issue Social Security cards, as well as disability hearing offices that handle appeals of unfavorable decisions in disability cases.

"So, the people who complain about long wait times and nobody answering the phone are talking about those entities, maybe there are a lot of layers of bureaucracy above us, but those exist to provide support for us frontline people," the Social Security Administration employee said. "This is crazy and illogical, motivated by a blind, stupid hatred of the public sector as a whole."

An Internal Revenue Service employee told BI that "it will take years, if not decades, to fully recover" from the federal government cuts.

"Americans are going to feel this very deeply," they said. "Services are going to be nonexistent."

An employee from the Department of Housing and Urban Development said they were prepared to be moved to a different department after a meeting with their supervisor about the memo.

"There's so much confusion — respond to the productivity email, don't respond, and now being told to get ready to move departments — I see how this Elon tactic can mentally drain you because this week was so hard to log in and be productive," the HUD worker said.

The restructuring memo came just days after the White House DOGE office sent a weekend email asking all federal employees to list what work tasks they had accomplished last week, prompting confusion among some employees about how and whether to reply outside their chain of command.

While some federal workers who previously spoke with BI said the confusion created by the emails and subsequent conflicting guidance from department heads had caused them to reconsider their work in the government, others said they were resolved to stick it out.

"I've never seen morale so low in my 18 years of service," an employee from the Bureau of Reclamation said, adding that they "believe we are witnessing the final days" of their agency.

Still, they said they saw their department's work protecting water resources as essential for the country and had no plans of stopping unless they were forced out of public service.

"They'll have to fire me," they said.

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