The Trump administration is intensifying its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce by ordering agencies to lay off all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection.

Workers across the federal government were terminated on Thursday after the federal government’s human resources division advised agencies to lay off most probationary employees.

Layoffs at the U.S. General Services Administration, the agency which manages the federal government's real estate portfolio, began on Wednesday, according to three people familiar with the matter.