Social Security offers 40 probationary feds reassignments to avert blanket firings

The Social Security Administration on Thursday gave 41 probationary employees in the agency’s headquarters and regional offices the choice to be reassigned to frontline agency work or to get caught up in the ongoing governmentwide purge of recently hired or promoted workers.

As President Trump and Elon Musk seek to rapidly decrease the size of government by summarily firing most federal workers who either were hired or promoted within the last year or had recently transferred across agencies, SSA has largely been exempted from the cuts—frontline workers there also were ineligible to participate in Trump and Musk’s deferred resignation program—in part due to the agency’s staffing crisis. The agency’s headcount currently sits at a 50-year low, despite steadily growing workloads caused by a growing number of beneficiaries.   

Those exemptions have carried over into the current ongoing effort to purge agencies of employees still on their probationary periods, when they have fewer civil service protections—though recent agency transfers and promoted employees retain their previously earned protections. The vast majority of SSA’s 1,800 probationary employees perform mission critical functions, such as working in the agency’s field offices, hearing offices and payment and teleservice centers, are spared from the current round of firings.

But 41 probationary workers serving at Social Security’s headquarters in Baltimore or regional offices around the country were instead sent an email Thursday morning, informing them that they had eight hours—or until 4:30 p.m.—to decide whether to accept a new position doing frontline work or be fired. But the offer came with no guarantee that their reassignment would be accepted, an employee’s new job may be at a lower pay grade than their current position, and any relocation would be done at the worker’s expense.

“As part of government-wide restructuring efforts, employees serving probationary or trial periods in non-mission critical areas will not be retained by the agency,” the agency wrote in an email obtained by Government Executive. “The agency is offering a limited window of 8 hours for employees serving on probationary or trial periods who will not be retained to request a voluntary reassignment to an exempted mission critical position.”

Rich Couture, spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees’ Social Security General Committee, which represents more than 40,000 SSA employees, confirmed the initiative and said while the union appreciates giving probationary workers who weren’t subject to the agency’s exemptions a chance to stay employed, the agency needs more workers, not fewer.

“We are grateful that the probationary employees on the front line were not terminated,” he said. “With 10,000 new beneficiaries each day and a 50-year low in staffing, now is the time to be adding to our frontline staff . . . Should all [of the 41 probationary employees] accept reassignment, we still need to prevent attrition and add 20,0000 new hires to be able to deliver Americans their earned benefits efficiently and accurately.”