The Trump administration’s effort to slash the federal workforce is pushing employees into a challenging job market. Federal workers skew older than those in the private sector, and their long bureaucratic experience often makes them less competitive applicants for corporate roles,

Job cuts cascaded through the federal government on Thursday after its human resources division advised agencies to terminate most of an estimated 200,000 workers on probation, a sharp escalation in the Trump administration’s drive to overhaul and shrink the federal work force.

The Trump administration has begun firing thousands of federal employees as part of a sweeping workforce restructuring.