The Trump administration is expecting to announce massive layoffs of federal employees.

Local employment attorney Gary Phelan says with these massive layoffs will come a slew of lawsuits. He says many class action lawsuits have already been filed by federal workers who have already been let go.

Senior officials set the downsizing in motion yesterday with a memo that dramatically expands Trump's efforts to scale back a workforce that he describes as an impediment to his agenda. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now the administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.

Phelan says these layoffs will trickle down and end up affecting our state's economy.

"The fallout from those lawsuits I think will have an impact in the private sector. You know certainly the federal government is a major consumer for corporations so if you have layoffs, not only the layoffs but also the cutbacks with respect to grant money you may .. many are anticipating it will result in layoffs in the private sector," said Phelan.

Roughly 80% of federal workers live outside Washington, and government services — patent approvals, food inspections, park maintenance and more — could be hindered depending on how cuts are handled. Thousands of federal employees were already laid off earlier this month.