Among a myriad of controversial presidential executive orders issued or revoked by US President Donald Trump, including a number declared unconstitutional by federal judges, there was the Schedule Career/Policy Executive Order that he signed on the very first day of his new term in office.
Through this order, Trump assumed authority that previously rested with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, that of reclassifying jobs of public workers. This empowered him to terminate the employment of these workers at any time for practically any reason without incurring legal liability.
Trump set out to implement a radical cut back on the overall size of the public service.
In an effort to rid the service of the largest number of employees possible, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offered an eight-month salary to those from among nearly 2.3 million public employees who accepted to resign from their post within a specified period of a few days. These excluded members of the armed forces, US postal service workers and those working in jobs related to immigration enforcement and national security.
To push public employees to accept the buyout, the OPM warned that action would be taken against those who remain in employment and do not meet high standards at their work, possibly even termination of employment.
According to the OPM, about 75,000 public employees eventually accepted the offer, which was considerably less than the 10 per cent of the whole workforce expected to resign.
The Trump administration also terminated the employment of probationary employees in various public agencies amounting to around 220,000 and embarked on a systemic dismantling of public agencies.
Trump brazenly signed an executive order that halted nearly all the health and emergency programmes run in the world’s poorest countries by the US Agency for International Development, with the ultimate intention of reducing the agency’s worldwide workforce from over 10,000 to a mere 294.
Trump also dismissed the agency’s inspector general without giving a reason and, had it not been for a restraining order by a judge, he would have placed around 500 agency workers on administrative leave with an additional 2,200 joining them at a later date.
Other governments around the world have faced similar situations where they felt the need to bring the public service staff number down in order to cut public spending and repair the country’s finances. The current British Labour government is a typical example.
The Maltese public service is similarly overstaffed but, unlike other country leaders, Prime Minister Robert Abela has put his blinders on and refused to admit to the reality of the situation.
Between March 1, 2013 and October 1, 2024, public sector employment increased astronomically by 44.77 per cent from 40,608 to 58,787.
A point has been reached where one in five workers in Malta is on the state payroll, which is considerably higher than the EU average, and this is creating a financial strain on the country.
If the basic average monthly salary in the public sector is conservatively estimated at €1,927, the public expenditure on salaries would be costing the country at least €113.28 million a month or €1.359 billion every year, and this does not include the cost of various existing allowances and recognition payments.
Between 2013 and 2024, public sector employment increased astronomically from 40,608 to 58,787- Denis Tanti
The situation is more worrisome when considering that the government employs over 5,000 additional workers through outsourcing private companies, who continue bloating the public sector while costing the taxpayer an estimated additional €60 million a year in salaries and commissions.
Besides, millions of euros have been paid by the government to the General Workers’ Union since 2015 to run the Community Workers Scheme, through which thousands of individuals work in the public sector despite being registered as employed in the private sector.
The government has created a swollen overmanned public service and, at the same time, has saturated the country with foreign workers to fill vacancies in private industries that could have been filled with surplus workers in the public service.
Thousands of jobs in the public sector have also been distributed by government ministers and Labour politicians through the exercise of their power of incumbency, mostly before an election that they would be contesting.
Ministers also go beyond the longstanding widely accepted practice that gives them the liberty of recruiting persons on the basis of trust to work in their ministerial secretariats. They handpick hundreds of Labour Party henchmen and cronies to fill administrative, managerial and technical positions in public bodies falling under their ministerial remit under the fake designation of ‘person of trust’, for which they receive generous salaries together with a raft of perks and fringe benefits.
These individuals are not subjected to a selection process following a call for applications by the Public Service Commission according to normal practice or even assessed under the commission’s guidance to establish whether they are fit for the job.
The head of the civil service, Tony Sultana has vehemently defended the narrative peddled by Abela that it is not true that the public service is burdened with excess workers and has even boasted that the service has reached a high efficiency level to the extent of serving as some sort of model to private companies.
However, Eurostat data contradicts Sultana, and it shows that, while the number of public service employees has continued to increase, there has been a drop in the productivity.
An attitude of ‘take what you can get’ prevails in the public service. Discipline and order are lacking, and it is not uncommon for an employee not to turn up for work. The practice of working remotely from home still persists five years after the COVID pandemic and this is hindering a structured work environment with a negative effect on productivity.
Despite the American electorate’s opinion about Trump’s divisive political figure and anti-democratic politics, many voters demonstrated support for his hardline stances on various issues including the downsizing of the public workforce.
Trump did not cut corners with regard to the COVID-era home working practices. His stern warning to public employees was: “You have to go to your office and work. Otherwise, you’re not going to have a job.”
Denis Tanti is a former assistant director at the health ministry.