White House tells agencies to come up with a plan to shrink their workforces

A governmentwide hiring freeze the president imposed on Jan. 23 will be lifted immediately. But Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Tuesday that agency leaders must start “taking immediate actions” to save money and reduce their staffs. Mulvaney also said they must come up with a long-term blueprint to cut the number of federal workers starting in October 2018.

“This does not mean that agencies will be free to hire willy nilly,” Mulvaney said of the return to hiring. He called the restructuring — laid out in a 14-page memo — a “smarter plan, a more strategic plan, a more surgical plan” to rein in a bureaucracy that President Trump has called too big and bloated.

By following a budget the president proposed in March that calls for drastic cuts across most of the government, Mulvaney said some agencies such as the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs will add staff, while others, like the Environmental Protection Agency, will “end up paring” full-time employees “even greater than they would have . . . during the hiring freeze.”