(Reuters) -The U.S. Internal Revenue Service will lay off about 6,700 employees on Thursday, in a restructuring that could strain the tax-collecting agency’s resources during the critical tax-filing season, a person familiar with the matter said.

The workers being cut are probationary employees who have typically been at the agency for less than one to two years, and enjoy fewer protections than longer-term workers. The IRS has a total of roughly 17,000 probationary employees.

The reductions at the IRS come amid a broader slashing of personnel across the federal government at the directive of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who is spearheading an unprecedented effort to shrink the bureaucracy.

Like other agencies, the IRS was ordered last week by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees federal hiring, to dismiss all probationary employees.

But the IRS has taken a more careful approach than most agencies due to concerns about squeezing resources with the April 15 tax filing deadline just two months away. The IRS remains busy for weeks after the deadline, processing returns and refunds for taxpayers.

Roughly 6,600 probationary IRS employees will be kept on to work through the tax filing season, the person familiar with the matter said.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese)