Washington (AFP) - The White House said Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal workers as President Donald Trump sought to amp up pressure on opposition Democrats to end a government shutdown that has crippled public services.

With the crisis set to go into a third week and no off-ramp in sight, Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought announced on social media that the administration had begun following through on threats to fire some of the 750,000 public servants placed on enforced leave.

The Office of Management and Budget, headed by Vought, told AFP the layoffs would be “substantial,” but gave no precise numbers or details of which departments would be most affected.

The president has repeatedly emphasized that he views cutbacks as a way of increasing pain on Democrats, and said last week he was meeting Vought to determine which of “the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM” should be targeted.

Democratic leaders in Congress have dismissed the threats as an attempt at intimidation and say mass firings would not stand up in court.

“Russell Vought just fired thousands of Americans with a tweet,” the party’s leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement berating the White House for wreaking “deliberate chaos.”

“Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this. They don’t have to do it; they want to,” he fumed.

“They’re callously choosing to hurt people – the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike.”

Unions representing 800,000 government employees asked a federal judge in San Francisco for an emergency order to halt the firings, ahead of a hearing set for October 16 on their legality.

A US Treasury spokesperson told AFP the department had begun sending out notices of layoffs while the Health and Human Services Department said it had started firing nonessential workers “as a direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown.”

Education officials were also reducing their workforce, a source with knowledge of staffing decisions at the department told AFP.

- ‘Tired of the chaos’ -

Public servants who hang onto their jobs still face the misery of going without pay while the crisis remains unresolved, with the standoff expected to drag on until at least the middle of next week.

Adding to the pain, 1.3 million active-duty service military personnel are set to miss their pay due next Wednesday – something that has not happened in any of the funding shutdowns through modern history.

“We’re not in a good mood here in the Capitol – it’s a somber day,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference marking the 10th day of the shutdown.

Nonessential government work stopped after the September 30 funding deadline, with Senate Democrats repeatedly blocking a Republican resolution to reopen federal agencies.

The sticking point has been a refusal by Republicans to include language in the bill to address expiring subsidies that make health insurance affordable for 24 million Americans.

With a prolonged shutdown looking more likely each day, members of Congress have been looking to Trump to step in and break the deadlock.

But the president has been largely tuned out, with his focus on the Gaza ceasefire deal and sending federal troops to bolster his mass deportation drive in Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Portland.

“The American people are sick and tired of the chaos, crisis and confusion that has been visited upon the country by Donald Trump and Republican complete control of Congress,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told a news conference.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) meanwhile announced it would delay publication of key inflation data due next week to October 24, with the shutdown logjamming government data releases.

The consumer price index data is being published to allow the Social Security Administration to “ensure the accurate and timely payment of benefits,” it said.