At-will employment and chronic job insecurity

In contrast to robust protections against arbitrary discharge provided by most industrialized and democratic nations, at-will employment represents the most prevalent form of employment contract in the United States, covering approximately 74 % of all workers, and is the legal doctrine in the District of Columbia and all states except Montana (NAACP, 2020). This doctrine allows employers to terminate employees at any time, for any lawful reason, and without advance notice (except under certain conditions such as those enumerated in the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification [WARN] Act). Thus, absent a collective bargaining agreement or explicit just-cause contractual protections, at-will employment lacks any guarantees of job security (Alcorn, Reference Alcorn2023). In moving toward at-will employment, Schedule F, with its nearly unfettered right to terminate employees, will effectively result in a more precarious federal workforce due to (a) the inherent and chronic lack of job security, (b) systemic power imbalances between the federal government and individual employees, and (c) the threat of losing essential benefits such as health insurance and retirement savings that are job dependent in the United States (Racabi, Reference Racabi2023).

Although proponents of at-will employment argue it allows for more efficient removal of nonmeritorious employees, at-will employment also renders federal workers vulnerable to unfair treatment, bad faith or malicious termination, and exploitation without recourse or explanation, in addition to capricious discharge decisions based upon favoritism, political leanings, implicit bias, personal vendettas, and other forms of arbitrary reasoning.

Procedural justice in organizations and psychological contract breach

Perceived fairness related to decision-making processes in organizations is known as procedural justice (Colquitt et al., Reference Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter and Ng2001). Actual outcomes and decision-making processes are generally independent of each other (Folger & Bies, Reference Folger and Bies1989): Employees judge whether an outcome (e.g., a new policy) is favorable and fair but also if the processes that determined it were devoid of bias. Relatedly, an employment relationship should involve an exchange of employee time and effort for material benefits from the organization. Yet, employees develop implicit and explicit beliefs about the terms and conditions of this transaction, referred to as the psychological contract (Morrison & Robinson, Reference Morrison and Robinson1997).

Empirical evidence supports the notion that job security is an implicit employee expectation. Indeed, until being dropped from their annual survey, the Society for Human Resource Management consistently found that workers listed job security as the most important contributor to job satisfaction (Hastings, Reference Hastings2010) and recent surveys (e.g., Moriarty, Reference Moriarty2024) indicate that newer job entrants prioritize secure long-term employment over earning more money. Moreover, a lack of security is perceived by employees as an organization’s failure to sustain its end of the bargain (Loi et al., Reference Loi, Lam and Chan2012; Probst et al., Reference Probst, Bazzoli, Jenkins, Jiang and Bohle2021).

Injustice and psychological contract breach can help explain the link between job insecurity and adverse outcomes (Bazzoli & Probst, Reference Bazzoli and Probst2022): When workers perceive that their job may be at risk, they experience a discrepancy between what was promised (i.e., a stable job and fair processes to determine workplace policies) and their current experience. Once a breach has occurred, workers engage in a sensemaking process to determine their response, which may include feelings of betrayal as well as affective, attitudinal, and behavioral responses that are negative in nature (Zhao et al., Reference Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski and Bravo2007).

Consequences for federal workers

The stable employment traditionally offered by the Competitive Service appointment process provides both latent and manifest benefits to federal workers (Jahoda, Reference Jahoda1981), both of which are threatened by the proposed changes. Schedule F has obvious economic implications for federal workers facing the threat of dismissal without cause and without recourse, including the immediate loss of income and other manifest benefits such as retirement benefits if they are dismissed prior to being fully vested. Yet, employees also risk losing the numerous latent benefits that work provides: social status, collective purpose, sense of identity, social support, and time structure. Implications of Schedule F and its chronic threat to the stability and continuance of employment can be gleaned from decades of research revealing the numerous far-reaching negative impacts of such job insecurity on the health and well-being of affected workers.

From a physical health perspective, large-scale meta-analyses and prospective studies indicate job insecure workers face significantly higher odds of being diagnosed with diabetes (Ferrie et al., Reference Ferrie, Virtanen, Jokela, Madsen, Heikkilä, Alfredsson, Batty, Bjorner, Borritz, Burr, Dragano, Elovainio, Fransson, Knutsson, Koskenvuo, Koskinen, Kouvonen, Kumari, Nielsen and Nordin2016), have a greater risk of developing coronary artery disease compared to their secure counterparts (Virtanen et al., Reference Virtanen, Nyberg, Batty, Jokela, Heikkila, Fransson, Alfredsson, Bjorner, Borritz, Burr, Casini, Clays, De Bacquer, Dragano, Elovainio, Erbel, Ferrie, Hamer, Jockel and Kittel2013), and exhibit high levels of C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation; Magnusson Hanson et al., Reference Magnusson Hanson, Rod, Vahtera, Virtanen, Ferrie, Shipley, Kivimäki and Westerlund2020). In addition to these concrete physical impacts, job insecurity also wreaks “unseen” psychological havoc resulting in significantly worse mental health, a higher incidence of depression and anxiety, more emotional exhaustion and burnout, reduced life satisfaction, and overall decreased psychological well-being (Jiang & Lavaysse, Reference Jiang and Lavaysse2018; Kim & Von Dem Knesebeck, Reference Kim and Von Dem Knesebeck2016; Llosa et al., Reference Llosa, Menéndez-Espina, Agulló-Tomás and Rodríguez-Suárez2018; Sverke et al., Reference Sverke, Hellgren and Näswall2002). Not surprisingly, growing evidence suggests that the prolonged threat of job loss poses as great a risk (and sometimes even greater risk) to employee health and well-being as the experience of unemployment itself (Burchell, Reference Burchell2011; Griep et al., Reference Griep, Kinnunen, Nätti, De Cuyper, Mauno, Mäkikangas and De Witte2016; Kim & Von Dem Knesebeck, Reference Kim and Von Dem Knesebeck2015).

Consequences for federal agencies

If arguments regarding the health impacts on workers (and the associated higher healthcare costs that would need to be absorbed by the federal budget) are unpersuasive, research also indicates that the use of Schedule F is unlikely to result in favorable outcomes for federal agencies either. Although EO 13957 (2020) proclaimed that agencies needed “the flexibility to expeditiously remove poorly performing employees from these positions,” empirical research has extensively shown that wielding job insecurity as a weapon to improve employee performance or compliance is a widespread practice but generally not an effective one (Bazzoli & Probst, Reference Bazzoli and Probst2023). Removing poor performers to improve an organization’s performance—which is one of the stated goals of EO 13957—does not seem to work as intended (Oliveira et al., Reference Oliveira, Abner, Lee, Suzuki, Hur and Perry2024).

Indeed, despite common assumptions that job insecurity keeps workers “sharp” and “on their toes,” the accumulated body of evidence indicates to the contrary that job insecurity is associated with reduced in-role and extra-role job performance (Sverke et al., Reference Sverke, Låstad, Hellgren, Richter and Näswall2019), lower creativity (Probst et al., Reference Probst, Stewart, Gruys and Tierney2007, Reference Probst, Chizh, Hu, Jiang and Austin2019), less innovation (De Spiegelaere et al., Reference De Spiegelaere, Van Gyes, De Witte, Niesen and Van Hootegem2014; Van Hootegem et al., Reference Van Hootegem, Niesen and De Witte2019), increased disengagement (Getahun Asfaw & Chang, Reference Getahun Asfaw and Chang2019), impaired decision making (Marx-Fleck et al., Reference Marx-Fleck, Junker, Artinger and Dick2021), and increased hiding of critical knowledge (Jeong et al., Reference Jeong, Kim and Lee2023). Additionally, job insecurity (due to impaired cognitive functioning and/or job preservation motivations) leads to increased safety shortcuts and other risky behaviors resulting in more accidents and injuries, as well as a decreased propensity to report safety incidents due to fears of retaliation (Probst, Reference Probst2002, Reference Probst2004; Probst et al., Reference Probst, Barbaranelli and Petitta2013; Probst & Brubaker, Reference Probst and Brubaker2001; Quinlan & Bohle, Reference Quinlan and Bohle2009).

Thus, in addition to meta-analytical evidence showing that the effect of performance management systems on government employees’ job performance is negligible at best (Gerrish, Reference Gerrish2016), arguments in favor of chronic job insecurity as an effective means to improve performance (defined by nearly any metric) are simply not supported by empirical findings.Footnote ² Besides failing to reap performance-related benefits, Schedule F is also likely to suppress whistleblowing efforts to expose fraud, abuse, and inefficiencies in light of fears of immediate retaliation and a lack of job protections. Indeed, employees with weaker job security may be less likely to report misconduct (Lewis, Reference Lewis1995) and also increasingly rely on moral disengagement mechanisms to justify their own ethically questionable behavior (Huang et al., Reference Huang, Wellman, Ashford, Lee and Wang2017; Probst et al., Reference Probst, Petitta, Barbaranelli and Austin2020; Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Zhang, Lu and Zhang2022).

Impacts on federal agencies’ customers

Citizens, taxpayers, and private businesses, as federal agencies’ customers (see EO 14058, 2021), will also be negatively impacted by Schedule F. Public-sector jobs often offer lower salaries than their private-sector counterparts (Perry et al., Reference Perry, Hondeghem and Wise2010), and strong job protections act as a compensatory mechanism to attract and retain highly qualified professionals. Recruitment challenges are common within federal agencies (Federation of American Scientists, 2024), and reducing job protections could worsen them, potentially leading to less-qualified hires or understaffed critical services. For example, prospective applicants think at-will employers care less about their employees and consider it riskier to join at-will organizations compared to just-cause employers (Wayland et al., Reference Wayland, Clay and Payne1993).

Job insecurity may also cause high performing employees to look for opportunities elsewhere, resulting in a critical loss of expertise, which will further reduce government efficiency—counter to the stated goals of EO 13957. Indeed, large reductions in force do not generally reach their intended goal to improve organizational performance: Evidence from the private sector shows that firm’s profitability decreases after such events (Datta & Basuil, Reference Datta, Basuil, Andresen and Nowak2015). In fact, if significant numbers of competent civil servants resign or are terminated, federal agencies are likely to increasingly rely on outsourced contractors—a trend seen during the first Trump administration and predicted to increase during this term (MyGovWatch, 2025). Yet, outsourced public services ironically lead to higher costs (Chassy & Amey, Reference Chassy and Amey2011) and lower satisfaction with those outsourced services (Dahlström et al., Reference Dahlström, Nistotskaya and Tyrberg2018).

Last, research suggests that employment protections ensure a well-qualified, nonpartisan workforce by upholding neutral competence (i.e., the idea that civil servants should be selected and retained based on impartial expertise rather than political loyalty; Kaufman, Reference Kaufman1956), and that job security provisions support the development of an expert bureaucracy (Gailmard & Patty, Reference Gailmard and Patty2007), which in turn is associated with significant and economically important gains in government efficiency as measured by decreased delays, lower cost overruns, and lower number of contract renegotiations (Decarolis et al., Reference Decarolis, Giuffrida, Iossa, Mollisi and Spagnolo2018).

Implications for organizational sciences: research, practice, and training