- Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency probationary employees were fired on Friday.
- But some staff at the EPA were told Wednesday they were fired by accident.
- Similar scenes have reportedly played out at several other federal agencies.
On February 14, hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency staff were notified by email that they were being terminated.
Five days later, the EPA emailed some of them to say they weren’t being fired after all.
“This is to provide notification that the Agency is rescinding your termination. You are not being removed from EPA or from federal civil service at this time,” read the email, which was seen by Business Insider.
The unsigned email apologized “for this inconvenience” and thanked employees for their service. It also informed them that if they had already turned in EPA equipment like laptops and badges, their supervisors would help them get those items back.
It’s not clear how many employees had their firings rescinded. Business Insider spoke to three. All requested anonymity out of fear of professional reprisal, but their identities are known to BI.
One agency employee whose termination was rescinded, a water-quality inspector, said working for the EPA was her “dream job” and said she hoped she could go right back to working on the cases that she was working on last week.
Another said she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to come back.
“I’m more on the angry side of grief now,” the second employee said. “It’s just ridiculous.”
The second employee told BI they were in a group chat with about two dozen other employees, and “10 or 15” had been told their terminations were rescinded.
Two employees said at least some of the people who had their firings reversed had been hired through the EPA’s “Pathways” program for recent college graduates.
On Friday, an EPA spokesperson confirmed to BI it had terminated 388 probationary employees. According to information on doge.gov, about 1,579 EPA employees have less than a year of tenure, about 9.6% of the agency’s workforce.
Federal employees typically serve a one-year probationary period when first hired, during which they can be more easily terminated than permanent staff.
Media representatives for the EPA and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Rescinding termination orders appears to be happening across the federal government.
As Business Insider previously reported, some probationary staff at the Small Business Administration were told they were terminated, then not terminated, and then officially terminated over the course of five days.
The publication Government Executive reported that terminations have been rescinded for workers in the Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture, which is dealing with a massive bird flu outbreak. The outlet reported that at least one Small Business Administration worker was fired twice, with the agency backtracking both times.
The federal government fired thousands of probationary workers starting last week, and more layoffs are expected this week as well.
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