More than 3,600 feds get notice their shutdown RIFs are rescinded
In total, 3,605 federal workers got notice that their jobs were being eliminated during or because of the government shutdown. Each RIF has now been reversed.
Jared Serbu
November 21, 2025 5:45 pm
2 min read
Last week’s conclusion of the record-breaking government shutdown was great news for federal employees in general. But for a few thousand specific feds, it was even better news. They’d been told they were about to lose their jobs completely, and as of Friday, almost all of them have now had those notices formally rescinded.
Filings the Justice Department submitted to a federal court in San Francisco on Friday indicate that each of the more than 3,000 federal workers who had received reduction in force (RIF) notices after the shutdown began have now been formally notified that those RIFs have been cancelled.
That action came as a result of several provisions in the continuing resolution Congress passed last week to reopen the government. The legislation provided that not only any RIF notice an agency issued on Oct. 1 or later “shall have no force or effect,” but it also barred federal agencies from using any funding to conduct any further RIFs for as long as the current CR is in effect.
Those same RIFs were the subject of a union lawsuit that had already resulted in a preliminary injunction putting the layoffs on hold. But the Trump administration argues the continuing resolution means there’s no longer a need to litigate over whether the RIFs were legal in the first place.
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“In light of these developments, defendants believe this case is moot,” attorneys wrote in a filing Friday.
In all, agency-by-agency filings show the administration attempted to fire a total of 3,605 employees during the shutdown — with RIF notices ranging from more than 1,300 at the Internal Revenue Service to 54 at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
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Agencies updated their filings on Friday to indicate that they had complied with the directive Congress included in the CR to notify each employee that their RIF notices have been withdrawn.
However, there is some doubt as to the fate of 299 positions in the Department of Education’s civil rights division. Although the department notified those workers on Oct. 14 — a time period during which Congress undid all other RIF notices — the government argues that those specific notices were first issued in March, and consequently weren’t covered by the continuing resolution.
“Although the March 2025 RIF group of OCR employees is an entirely separate group from the 137 OCR employees to whom October 10 RIF notices were issued, and finalizing the March 2025 RIF does not involve issuing or implementing a RIF during and because of the shutdown, ED has paused separating the March RIF OCR employees pursuant to this court’s preliminary injunction pending clarification from the court that the current preliminary injunction does not encompass ED’s March 2025 RIF,” Jacqueline Clay, the department’s chief human capital officer wrote in a declaration.
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