(Reuters)

A California federal judge on Thursday (March 13) ordered six US agencies to reinstate thousands of recently-hired employees who were fired as part of President Donald Trump’s purge of the federal workforce.

The ruling made by U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco applies to the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

Alsup last month temporarily blocked the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the human resources department for federal agencies, from ordering agencies to fire probationary employees, but declined at the time to require that fired workers get their jobs back.

Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees. They have fewer job protections than other government workers, but in general can only be fired for performance issues.

Alsup said on Thursday that OPM has no power to order firings, and there was evidence that it had improperly directed the termination of workers at the six agencies. He did not order the 16 other agencies named in the lawsuit by unions and nonprofit groups to reinstate workers.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said.

The potential scale of Trump’s efforts to shrink the US federal government could become clearer on Thursday, the deadline for government agencies to submit plans for a second wave of mass layoffs and to slash their budgets.