OPM proposes new layoff rules emphasizing performance and reducing employee protections

Updated at 11:14 a.m., March 6

The Trump administration has unveiled its plan to streamline the rules governing layoffs at federal agencies, though employee groups warn the overhaul will contribute to more arbitrary mass firings.

A proposed rule, set for publication Thursday in the Federal Register, describes the current reduction in force procedures, in which tenure is the most important factor, as “outdated” and “cumbersome,” and creates a new methodology placing the most emphasis on an employee’s three most recent performance appraisals. The Office of Personnel Management cites agencies’ struggles to implement mass layoffs in 2025 as evidence that change is needed.

“In 2025, OPM provided technical policy advice on, as well as provided advice and assistance and ran (on a reimbursable basis) numerous RIFs for federal agencies,” the rule states. “The cumbersome and intricate rules make RIFs more time-consuming and resource intensive than necessary and create the possibility of more errors when agencies attempt implementation.”

The proposal creates a new formula for determining which employees within a RIF are retained, based on the weighted sum of their three most recent performance appraisals—seven points for an “Outstanding” rating scaling down to zero points for “Minimally Successful” or “Unacceptable” ratings. The score for a 1 or 2 performance appraisal were revised from a previous draft of the regulations, reviewed by Government Executive last November, in which “Unacceptable” ratings received one point and two points were reserved for a Level 2 rating.

The proposed rule also changes the methodology for determining which federal job types are excluded from RIF procedures, stripping them of the procedural protections baked into the layoff process. Currently, only members of the Senior Executive Service and Senate-confirmed political appointees are excluded; under OPM’s plan, all career probationary employees, workers on temporary appointments and political appointees in schedules C and G also would be excluded.

The measure also makes it easier for agencies to downgrade federal employees to lower-paying roles if their job duties have been “eroded” over time, removing the requirement that those employees go through RIF procedures.

Experts warned last fall that the RIF overhaul, when combined with the Trump administration’s embrace of forced distributions of performance ratings, will actually make it harder for agencies to emphasize merit in the layoff process. In a statement Wednesday, American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley warned that, when taken together with other proposals to strip the Merit Systems Protection Board of jurisdiction over RIF appeals and to sharply limit the number of top performance ratings managers may issue, the measure paves the way for arbitrary mass firings of federal workers.

“By gutting seniority protections and handing agencies sweeping new discretion over who stays and who goes, OPM is making it easier to conduct politically motivated layoffs dressed up as ‘performance-based decisions,’” Kelley said. “But the performance system itself is being rigged by another recent proposed OPM rule that would cap how many employees can receive high ratings, ensuring that ‘performance’ reflects not actual merit but management’s subjective preferences.”

Comments on the new proposal are due May 4.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that OPM’s plan would extend the exclusion to all career excepted service personnel, including those set to be converted to the revived Schedule Policy/Career, as well as probationary employees. In fact, under OPM’s plan, all career probationary employees, workers on temporary appointments, and political appointees in schedules C and G also would be excluded.