The Trump administration is doubling down on threats to lay off thousands of federal employees if Congress doesn’t end the government shutdown soon, but has yet to deliver on its ultimatum.
President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday night that layoffs were “taking place right now.” But in a press briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was actually referring to the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.
“Millions of American federal workers are under enormous financial stress as a result, wondering how they will pay their bills and take care of their families. If the Democrats do not vote to open the government tonight, federal workers will not receive their next full paycheck,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt said last week that layoffs “in the thousands” were imminent, and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told Republican lawmakers that layoffs would happen in the coming days.
On Monday, Leavitt said OMB is “continuing to work with agencies on who, unfortunately, is going to have to be laid off if this shutdown continues,” and those plans would proceed if Congress didn’t reach a deal to end the shutdown.
Monday afternoon, the Senate, for a fifth time, failed to pass stopgap funding bills introduced by both Democrats and Republicans.
“We don’t want to see people laid off. But unfortunately, if this shutdown continues, layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence of that,” she added.
Unions representing government employees have asked a federal judge to preemptively block the Trump administration from carrying out any mass layoffs during the shutdown.
Despite the threat of more mass layoffs, one agency is doing the opposite: reinstating hundreds of formerly laid-off employees and keeping them on the job during the shutdown.
The General Services Administration on Monday brought hundreds of employees back to work to manage its governmentwide real estate portfolio, after rescinding reduction-in-force notices they had delivered months ago. Several GSA employees told Federal News Network that the shutdown did not hamper plans to bring these reinstated employees back to work, and that many of them will continue to work and be paid on time during the lapse.
GSA employees told Federal News Network last month that GSA planned to rescind RIFs for about 400 Public Buildings Service employees.
An industry official told Federal News Network that about 75% of PBS employees who were given the reinstatement option agreed to come back to work. A GSA spokesperson referred questions to OMB.
GSA’s updated contingency plans call for exempting more than 3,000 Public Buildings Service employees during the shutdown — a majority of the overall PBS workforce. PBS employees make up the vast majority of staff that GSA expects to keep working throughout a shutdown using carryover funds.
According to its latest contingency plan, about 64% of GSA employees are exempt from the current shutdown, because their work is supported by carryover funds and non-appropriated funds. GSA currently has more than 10,700 total employees.
PBS can continue normal operations, including paying its employees and covering its expenses — at least for now — due to “no-year” funds that the agency can carry over from one fiscal year to the next.
“Because GSA is the government’s property manager, GSA personnel will be responsible for maintaining, protecting, and preserving that property to a greater extent than many other agencies that are not responsible for property and asset management governmentwide,” the plan states. “Excepted GSA employees will be responsible for protecting life and/or federal property and providing necessary support to other government agencies to enable them to perform excepted activities.”
PBS had more than 5,600 employees in September 2024, but has gone through significant downsizing under the Trump administration.
During a shutdown, federal buildings generally remain open for employees, but may not be open to the public, and construction contracts at federally owned facilities that are paid for with carryover funds would continue. The agency expects it will be able to make next month’s rent payments for leased office space on time, but would generally be unable to sign new leases if the project wasn’t already underway before the shutdown.
GSA’s work to sell and dispose of underutilized federal buildings would be put on hold during a shutdown. Under the Trump administration, GSA has made it a goal to offload about 50% of its real estate portfolio.
“GSA’s role as an aggregator of large numbers of government assets and a supplier of critical tools, equipment, and supplies to other federal agencies requires that GSA retain adequate staffing under a lapse in appropriations in order to protect federal property under GSA’s custody and control and to continue to provide critical support to other federal agencies’ exempt and excepted activities necessary for the protection of life and Federal property,” the contingency plan states.
The Antideficiency Act prevents agencies from obligating funds during a lapse in congressional appropriations. But federal employees, in many cases, are exempt or excepted during a shutdown if their work protects “human life or the protection of property.”
The Trump administration has cited the protection of federal buildings as justification for deploying the National Guard into cities like Chicago and Portland.
“The president wants to ensure that our federal buildings and our assets are protected, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to do,” Leavitt said.
Former PBS Commissioner Norman Dong wrote in a January 2019 white paper that a shutdown lasting a few days would “have a relatively minor impact” on federal leasing, but a protracted shutdown could hypothetically impact the agency’s ability to make lease payments for governmentwide office space. In that scenario, Dong wrote that the federal government would have to take “unprecedented steps to fund its ongoing rent obligations to avoid significant disruption and consequences.”
“Most of the uncertainty surrounding this shutdown’s effect on GSA’s leased portfolio revolves around how long GSA goes without funding,” Dong wrote.
GSA’s contingency plans state that the number of exempt employees “will decrease as carryover funds are exhausted,” and that in some cases, exempt employees could be designated as “excepted,” meaning they would continue showing up to work, but no longer be paid on time until the shutdown ends.
“Additionally, depending on the length of a shutdown and GSA’s availability of funds, other activities may need to cease as well,” the plan states.
GSA oversees more than 8,800 federal buildings that cover 359 million square feet of space.
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