Over 9,500 US federal workers dismissed in Trump and Musk’s efficiency drive

President Donald Trump, backed by his adviser Elon Musk, has dismissed over 9,500 federal employees intensifying drive to reduce the US bureaucracy,

The dismissed employees were responsible for duties ranging from overseeing public lands to providing care for military veterans.

The workers were terminated from Workers at the Departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services.

On the other hand,  some agencies have been essentially shuttered, such as the independent watchdog the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where cuts also hit workers on fixed-term contracts.

The tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service is all set to terminate thousands of workers next week. The move that could squeeze resources ahead of Americans’ 15 April deadline to file income taxes.

The terminations are in addition to about 75,000 employees who have taken a buyout that Trump and Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily. That equals about 3 per cent of the 2.3 million-person civilian workforce.

Trump has said that the federal government is too bloated and too much money is lost to waste and fraud.

The US federal government has some $36 trillion in debt. It ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year, and there is bipartisan agreement on the need for reform.