The firings of over 5,000 probationary employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture may have been unlawful, and the workers should be reinstated for at least the next 45 days, a federal civil service board ruled Wednesday.

These Agriculture Department employees must be allowed back to their jobs for 45 days, as the Office of Special Counsel continues to investigate the Trump administration’s purge of recently hired, promoted or transferred federal employees.

A federal appeals board has ordered nearly 6,000 USDA employees back to work after they were fired during their probationary periods last month.

It's estimated that more than 20,000 federal employees, almost all probationary workers, have lost their jobs and another 75,000 have taken a redundancy package, out of the 2.3 million federal civilian workforce. Probationary workers typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, although some are long-time federal workers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture must temporarily reinstate more than 5,000 probationary employees fired since Feb. 13, according to a ruling by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The decision is a blow to the Trump administration’s effort to drastically and quickly shrink the federal bureaucracy.

An independent federal board has directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reinstate nearly 6,000 employees fired last month amid the Trump administration's effort to cull the federal workforce.

A workers’ board is reinstating – at least temporarily – almost 6,000 fired probationary workers from the Department of Agriculture, according to a newly issued order obtained by CNN.