Pentagon to fire 5,400 probationary workers, institute hiring freeze

The Defense Department said Friday that it’s cutting about 5,400 probationary workers starting next week and will put a hiring freeze in place.

It comes after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, were at the Pentagon earlier in the week and received lists of such employees, U.S. officials said. They said those lists did not include uniformed military personnel, who are exempt. Probationary employees are generally those on the job for less than a year and who have yet to gain civil service protection.

“We anticipate reducing the Department’s civilian workforce by 5-8% to produce efficiencies and refocus the Department on the President’s priorities and restoring readiness in the force,” Darin Selnick, who is acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said in a statement.

President Trump’s administration is firing thousands of federal workers who have fewer civil service protections. Thousands of probationary workers in federal health agencies were terminated last weekend. And more than 6,000 Internal Revenue Service employees were expected to be terminated by the end of this week, a source familiar with the agency’s plans told CBS News. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has supported cuts, posting on X last week that the Pentagon needs “to cut the fat (HQ) and grow the muscle (warfighters.)” He directed the Pentagon to come up with plans to cut 8% from the defense budget in each of the next five years, sources familiar with his plans told CBS News Thursday. 

Hegseth directed the military services to identify $50 billion in programs that could be cut next year to redirect those savings to fund Trump’s priorities, Robert Salesses, who is performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense, said Wednesday. It represents about 8% of the military’s budget.

“Through our budgets, the Department of Defense will once again resource warfighting and cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy,” Salesses said in Wednesday’s statement. 

The Defense Department is the largest government agency, with the Government Accountability Office finding in 2023 that it had more than 700,000 full-time civilian workers.

This also comes as Mr. Trump announced Friday he was firing Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was nominating retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to replace him.

Along with Brown’s dismissal, Hegseth announced that  Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force James Slife were also being fired. Franchetti was the first woman to lead the Navy, while Brown was only the second Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.