EPA layoffs hit RTP workforce as agency follows Trump orders to shrink federal staff
Recent layoffs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have affected early-career employees at the agency’s Research Triangle Park campus.
“I am currently aware of about a dozen individuals who were terminated last Friday,” said Holly Wilson, an EPA employee and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3347, which represents approximately 1,000 agency workers in the Triangle.
The campus is the EPA’s biggest and focuses on air-quality regulations.
Local cuts impacted “probationary” staff who had worked at the EPA for less than two years and were easier to dismiss under their contracts. Wilson said she is waiting on the agency to provide a full list of affected staff.
In a statement to The News & Observer, the EPA declined to share site-specific layoff figures. The agency said it fired 388 probationary employees overall on Friday “after a thorough review of agency functions in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders.”
This reduction was part of sweeping layoffs at multiple federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Heading into the new Trump administration, the EPA had more than 15,000 total employees, down from more than 17,000 workers in 2010. The agency’s total staff fell in President Donald Trump’s first term before hiring picked up under the Biden administration. Last June, then EPA Administrator Michael Regan said his agency had hired 5,200 workers over the previous four years.
The Trump administration has acted quickly to pull back this headcount growth.
In late January, the EPA cautioned more than 130 RTP-based employees that they could be fired without notice due to their status “as a probationary/trial period employee.” At the time, most federal workers were offered a buyout if they agreed to quit. Around 75,000 workers accepted the offer according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
This deferred resignation program was part of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s effort to shrink the federal workforce through the new Department of Government Efficiency, which he leads.
Earlier this month, the EPA placed close to 170 employees at its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., on paid administrative leave.
“EPA has followed standard protocols and procedures, ensuring impacted staff received notification of their status,” the agency told The N&O. “President Trump was elected with a mandate to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans, and we are doing just that.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 4:00 PM with the headline "EPA layoffs hit RTP workforce as agency follows Trump orders to shrink federal staff."
