The Trump administration has moved to strip hundreds of senior U.S. Department of Health and Human Services employees of civil service job protections, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
The change means they can be fired at will. Previously, they could only be fired for cause and had appeal rights.
This aligns with a broader overhaul of the federal civil service system announced in February, giving the president more power over up to 50,000 career employees.
An HHS official confirmed the email but did not specify how many staff would be affected. The GS-15 category typically includes senior technical experts, managers, and supervisors.
The email said initially "a relatively modest number...on the order of hundreds not thousands" would be affected, with more conversions to follow. No mass layoffs were announced beyond those previously confirmed.
