Nearly 1,300 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are being forced out under the Trump administration’s move to get rid of all probationary employees from government agencies, the Associated Press reported on Friday, citing a federal official.
Those workers make about one-tenth of CDC’s total staff, according to the report.
The verbal notice came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in a meeting with CDC leaders, AP reported, citing a federal official who was at the meeting.
The CDC and the HHS did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The U.S. government began firing thousands of people at multiple agencies on Thursday as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk accelerate their purge of America’s federal bureaucracy, union sources and employees familiar with the moves told Reuters.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)