Good morning!
In the latest installment of the Trump’s administration’s federal overhaul, thousands of government employees were dismissed across several different agencies over the weekend.
The terminations primarily targeted probationary workers who had been in their roles for a limited amount of time. But as these workers opened their termination letters, many were surprised to find out that they were being let go for their poor performance, and that their employment was no longer “in the public interest,” the Washington Post reported. The catch? Many had recently received glowing evaluations, or had yet to receive one at all.
We are now several weeks into unprecedented mass terminations aimed at federal workers. But an emphasis on citing performance reviews to cull workers, even with no evidence, is a new twist we haven’t seen yet. And it echoes a private-sector trend particularly prevalent in the tech sector that has become all too familiar over the past few years.
Meta laid off 3,600 of the company’s “lowest performers” last week. But former workers paint a different picture, with one now-departed content manager expressing on LinkedIn that she received positive reviews up until her termination.
“What I do know is this: I am not a low performer,” Kaila Curry, the ex-employee wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I am an adaptive hard worker who thrives in work that I can be passionate about.” Other former employees shared similar remarks.
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