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.

Nearly 1,300 probationary employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — roughly one-tenth of the agency’s workforce — are being forced out under the Trump administration’s move to

The Trump administration is laying off 1,300 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shrinking the public health agency as part of an effort to cut costs across the federal government.