Trump’s latest executive order creates new classification of federal employees

President Trump penned an executive order Thursday to form a new classification of noncareer federal employees who will be hired to “help faithfully implement the President’s policy agenda.” 

The employees will be listed under the “Schedule G” classification and will engage in “policy-making or policy-advocating work,” according to the White House. 

The move essentially creates another class of political appointees who, unlike career federal workers, can be hired and fired at will. This will allow the administration to funnel new hires into such roles, giving the Trump administration greater power over the federal workforce.

Schedule G jobs will be noncareer positions, which will “generally” be expected to end once the president who appointed them leaves the Oval Office. The classification does not apply to career positions or career workers.

“President Trump believes creating non-career Schedule G positions will enhance government efficiency and accountability and improve services provided to taxpayers by increasing the horsepower for agency implementation of Administration policy,” the White House said Thursday. 

The White House has argued the new classification of federal government employees will boost operations, especially at the Department of Veterans Affairs, “by streamlining appointments for key policy roles.” 

The administration did not list how many workers would be considered under the new classification. 

The new classification sparked a warning from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union.

“We are still carefully analyzing this new order, but we remain deeply concerned about executive actions that expand the number of positions throughout the federal government that can be hired and fired based on political loyalty instead of competence and merit,” AFGE president Everett Kelley said in a statement.

The Trump administration has taken a number of moves to exert greater control over the nonpartisan government workers who are hired to carry out agencies’ missions across administrations.

There’s been a special focus on those with policy jobs.

In April, the administration proposed a rule to reclassify thousands of career federal government employees as “at-will” workers, empowering “federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles.” 

Through that class of employees, Schedule Policy/Career (P/C), the Trump administration would be able to convert existing career workers into the new status. 

Trump tried to do so during the end of his first term, something former President Biden sought to block with a rule that would require government employees to consent to any shift in their employment status. The Trump rule would also unwind that protection.

Trump has taken various actions to shape the workforce, including by firing all probationary employees hired within the last year or two, as well as by conducting widespread layoffs.

Updated July 18 at 2:33 p.m. EDT