On June 3, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order that shifts roughly 8,000 senior career civil servants into a new at-will personnel category, stripping away the appeals and procedural protections those employees have relied on for years. The White House is pitching the move as an accountability push, while federal unions and watchdog groups are blasting it as a political purge that will weaken expertise across agencies. The change hits high-level policy roles first and could reshape how agencies hire, manage and fire senior staff.
Policy change rooted in OPM rule
The executive order rests on a regulation the Office of Personnel Management finalized in February, which rebrands the old “Schedule F” as “Schedule Policy/Career.” The rule clears a path for agencies to move policy-influencing jobs into an excepted, at-will schedule, while officially keeping hiring procedures merit-based. According to the Federal Register, the rule takes effect March 9 and provides the framework for reclassifying positions. OPM’s regulatory analysis says as many as 50,000 positions could be eligible for the new category, even though the initial wave is far smaller.
Who the White House says will be affected
The June order from the White House specifically moves roughly 8,000 “high-ranking” career positions into the new schedule, targeting roles the administration says wield significant influence over agency policy. As reported by NPR, most of those jobs are at the GS-15 level, perched near the top of the civil-service ladder.
Independent data show that the formal Senior Executive Service is smaller than that headline number. OPM counted about 6,600 SES positions as of April, and a separate estimate from the Congressional Research Service put the SES headcount at about 6,647 in April 2026. That gap underscores that the administration’s 8,000 figure blends traditional grade-level jobs with positions generally understood as senior management.
What the rule removes
Employees moved into Schedule Policy/Career are treated as at-will for adverse actions, according to OPM’s implementing rule, and generally lose the right to appeal removals to the Merit Systems Protection Board. The Federal Register details edits to 5 CFR that strip chapter 75 and chapter 43 protections from these positions. OPM says agencies must still adopt internal policies to guard against prohibited personnel practices, but the external safety net for those workers becomes much thinner.
Unions and watchdogs push back
A coalition of unions and public-interest organizations filed an updated legal challenge in March, arguing that the reclassification violates civil-service laws and the Administrative Procedure Act. The AFL-CIO and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility contend the rule would let political appointees sweep out career experts under the banner of accountability. The groups lodged a consolidated complaint on March 4, 2026, laying out their case against the policy. The AFL-CIO summarized the filing and its claims in a public statement.
Scale and immediate implications
The timing lands on a federal workforce that is already significantly leaner than it was just a few years ago. OPM’s data show roughly 2.0 million civilian employees governmentwide as of April 2026, and agencies have shed hundreds of thousands of positions since January 2025. Reclassifying top policy roles on top of that could strip programs of institutional knowledge, slow implementation as new managers are slotted in, and upend careers that took decades to build.
The risk is particularly acute in the Washington, D.C. metro area, home to many headquarters and program offices where the affected jobs are clustered. Delays in permitting, veterans benefits processing and regulatory reviews are among the potential ripple effects if leadership tiers churn or hollow out. OPM publishes the latest headcounts and month-by-month changes in the federal workforce.
Officials have not ruled out expanding the pool of at-will positions beyond the initial 8,000 designations, raising the prospect that many more career roles could eventually be swept into the new schedule. NPR reported the administration’s comment on that possibility. Legal experts expect immediate court challenges, and early litigation is already surfacing. LegalClarity and federal court dockets show that those cases could determine whether the rule ultimately survives judicial review.
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