La Jornada: Trump signs a decree to facilitate the dismissal of 8 thousand federal employees

Washington. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order that facilitates the dismissal of 8,000 of the highest paid civil servants, as part of a broader initiative to reform the federal workforce.

The order, published by the White House and the Office of Personnel Management, eliminates job protections for a group made up mostly of senior federal government officials who earn up to nearly $200,000 a year and are considered to “influence” government policy.

In a call announcing the move, Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the government’s human resources policies, said the government needs to hire people willing and able to follow orders to achieve policy priorities.

“You can have any political opinions, but if you allow those opinions to basically interfere with your willingness to actually follow the legal orders and the political directives of the administration, then this provides a mechanism, obviously, for people from those bodies to be removed effectively at will,” he said.

The order shows that Trump is persisting in his efforts to sanction and fire career officials who he believes undermine his political objectives, a year after billionaire Elon Musk left office at the head of an initiative to cut public spending and the workforce.

Sectors rebound in April and May

Activity in the US service sector rebounded in May, as companies preemptively placed orders and replenished their stocks in anticipation of shortages and price increases due to the war with Iran.

The Institute for Supply Management reported that its non-manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose to 54.5 last month, from 53.6 in April.

New orders for industrial products in the United States registered their biggest increase in almost a year in April, driven by strong demand for commercial aircraft and other products.

Industrial orders soared 4.8 percent, the biggest increase since May 2025, after an upwardly revised 1.8 percent advance in March, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau reported.

Private employment in the United States grew more than expected in May, to 122,000 jobs, the ADP national employment report revealed, after a downwardly revised increase of 105,000 in April.