Updated October 17, 2025 at 4:54 PM PDT

The Trump administration says it has paused work on only a small share of the roughly 4,000 mass layoffs announced since Oct. 1, in order to comply with a court order.

That includes more than 400 Department of Housing and Urban Development employees, 465 Education Department staff and 102 people with the Census Bureau, according to court filings released Friday.

Friday's court filing came amid a legal fight between the administration and two federal employee unions — the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — which sued to block what they call "politically driven RIFs," or reductions in force.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in the Northern District of

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