The IRS employee was a nervous wreck.
He had been worried for weeks that his job would be cut as part of the next round of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s cuts to the federal workforce. The worker, who prefers to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, was constantly searching for updates on a Reddit forum for federal workers, and glued to a group chat with his coworkers.
“I was just kind of a mess because I knew it was pretty much over,” he says.
That’s why when the ax finally fell, and his manager called to let him know he had been cut, it felt almost like a relief. He was fired along with thousands of other probationary workers in what was dubbed the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
“There was a period of expectation that this was going to happen— I was more or less just waiting for it. When I got the call, I was not surprised,” he says.
Large swaths of the government workforce have been laid off over the past two months through a variety of unprecedented means, including a return-to-office mandate and a mass resignation offer. But some groups were singled out for termination, including probationary employees. These workers—defined as recent hires or long-serving staffers who recently switched positions—were cut en masse in February when the Trump administration ordered federal agencies to fire nearly all of them. Around 220,000 federal employees in total had less than a year of service completed as of March 2024, according to government data.
Last week, two separate court rulings ordered the Trump administration to reinstate these fired probationary employees. But rather than a happy ending and a triumphant return to the office, many of these workers are grappling with new obstacles preventing their return, the emotional upheaval that comes with living in uncertainty, and big questions about what happens next.
“It’s beyond demoralizing to be stuck in this depressing and inefficient limbo—fired one moment, then supposedly rehired with no clarity about pay or benefits,” one Housing and Urban Development employee, who prefers not to be named for fear of retaliation, tells Fortune. “I don’t even know if I should look for another job or prepare to show up at HUD tomorrow.”
Famously fired
The firing of probationary workers was instantly met with legal challenges. But employees who lived through it had to contend with the day-to-day reality of lost paychecks, healthcare benefits, and dramatically altered lives.
Fired without severance, the IRS employee quickly filed for unemployment, but his claim was not immediately approved. He says he “has the means to weather the storm,” but has spent the last few weeks looking for new jobs without much luck.
The HUD employee’s termination, on the other hand, immediately triggered financial uncertainty, and her retired parents have stepped up to help pay bills. As someone with chronic illness, the loss of health insurance in particular triggered immense anxiety.
“It’s been one of the worst points of my life, in my marriage, [as] a mom, as a daughter,” she says. She adds that there were at least three days when she “just stayed in bed after my kids went to school and cried.”
The new purgatory
Last week, terminated probationary employees caught a break.
On March 14, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered six federal agencies, including the Department of Treasury, to reinstate thousands of employees who were cut under the guidance of the Office of Personnel management, a move he declared illegal. A different federal judge in Maryland ruled in favor of 20 Democrat attorneys general calling for the reinstatement of fired probationary federal workers from 18 federal agencies. The Trump administration has filed appeals in both cases.
The court’s decision to reinstate probationary employees has been the only light in a dark few weeks for the HUD employee. “My parents were so happy—my dad started crying,” she says.
But while last week’s court rulings were technically a victory for probationary workers, it’s not quite as simple as a triumphant Monday morning return to the office. The court rulings take issue with the way that these workers were fired, not a federal agency’s right to fire them in general, and many are likely still headed for termination.
While some workers have returned to their old roles, others were reinstated only to be immediately put on administrative leave, according to emails sent by the OPM and viewed by Fortune. These workers were told they “should not report to duty or perform any work until receiving further guidance.” As of writing, both the HUD and IRS employees have received no additional communication regarding a timeline on when, or even if, they will return to work.
It’s unclear how long this administrative leave will last, and each agency is acting in different ways. As of March 17, HUD had fully reinstated only 13 employees, while 299 were placed on administrative leave, according to statements submitted to the court by government agency leaders. The chief human capital officer at HUD, Lori Michalski, wrote that immediately reinstating those employees would “impose substantial burdens on HUD, cause significant confusion, and cause turmoil for the terminated employees.”
The IRS wrote in the same filing that it was working to reinstate 7,613 employees affected by the probationary worker terminations. However, the agency also noted that if an appellate ruling reverses the decision to bring back these workers, they “could be subjected to multiple changes in their employment status in a number of weeks.”
Currently, the day-to-day lives of both the IRS and HUD employees don’t look very different compared to before they were waiting to find out if they would be reinstated. They expect their previous paychecks to go through during the next pay cycle, but the HUD worker still has not had her health insurance reinstated.
While the IRS worker said he would be happy to be reinstated, and would gladly go back to the IRS if and when they allow him to do so. But he acknowledges that “it’s certainly not an avenue that I can rely on over the long term.”
The HUD employee says she’s applied for 168 jobs, and has had one informational interview. She thought she had chosen a stable career when she left the private sector to work for the government, but now says she has to think of her family’s future.
“I don’t want to count on this federal job. I don’t know if it will last.”
