Background on the Unlawful Probationary Firings

Probationary Employee:

In the federal government, a probationary period (typically one to three years) is required any time an employee begins a new role, even if they have worked in government for years in a parallel role as a contractor. This is different from how the private sector may define the probationary period. These individuals do the work of a full-time employee for the entirety of their probationary period, and are a protected class of federal workers.

Days after the Inauguration on January 20, 2025, agencies were asked by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to compile lists of probationary employees. Rumors started that these employees may be targeted for mass terminations. Terminations of this group of federal workers began on February 12th at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

In February 2025, mass terminations of probationary employees swept across the executive branch. Affected agencies included Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Science Foundation (NSF), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Energy (DoE), Department of Commerce (DoC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of the Interior (DOI), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and others. Some agencies outright fired workers. Other agencies placed probationary workers on administrative leave with a later date of termination. Some were brought back days later because their job was critical. Some probationary employees were briefly reinstated after court orders, then terminated again. Many received conflicting communications, were denied termination documentation, had backpay withheld, and were blocked from returning to work (as shown in the results of this survey).

In September 2025, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, found that these firings were unlawful. In his ruling, he stated these terminations were not legal and employees needed letters showcasing they were not fired for poor performance. He also noted during his testimony that probationary employees had "mostly moved on" by this point in time. Some probationary employees, as shown by the responses within this survey, had not moved on and felt it did not represent the true impact of these firings on themselves, and on the broader population.

There was so much chaos following the unlawful firings, and discrepancies between agencies in how they implemented the probationary terminations. This survey was developed as a way to understand the disarray of the last year and gauge what happened to this unique class of individuals. Partially due to a desire to acknowledge the upcoming anniversary of their unlawful terminations and partially through a desire to make sense of the dysfunction, fired probationary employees from HHS decided to create a survey to evaluate the impact of the unlawful probationary purge of themselves and colleagues. They began their work in November 2025 and invited impacted probationary employees from other agencies. 

They connected with former probationary employees from across the federal government, including staff from DOIs subagencies Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), DoCs subagency National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), USAID, and the DOI Subagency National Park Service (NPS), among others, to create a comprehensive survey to evaluate this unique and particular population. Having points of contact from across the government with many agencies was by design, to ensure the questions would reflect a wide variety of experiences and reach as many individuals as possible. The Methods section outlines details on the survey development, implementation, and analysis.

Why now? This survey was launched publicly at the one-year anniversary of the mass firing of HHS probationary employees on February 14th. The survey link went live and was spread far and wide. Organizers collected as many responses as possible and are now publishing the results. This is a group of volunteers working in their personal capacity, with 27 UNIHTED hosting the results, hoping to shed light into the results and repercussions of the unlawful firings of federal probationary employees.