WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the nation’s largest employer, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection — potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.

(Reuters) -Nearly 1,300 probationary workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are being forced out as U.S. President Donald Trump overhauls government agencies, the Associated Press reported on Friday,

Nearly 1,300 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are being forced out under the Trump administration’s move to get rid of all probationary employees

Department of Health and Human Services officials expected most of the agency’s roughly 5,200 probationary employees to be fired

Almost half of the probationary workers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others at the National Institutes of Health are being forced out as President Donald Trump overhauls government agencies,