The sequester. It's kind of a nonsensical name, and maybe it should be, because the policy now being called "sequestration" or "the sequester" makes no sense at all. It officially went into effect on Friday, March 1, and unless Congress agrees to do something different, it will mean indiscriminate across-the-board cuts in most federal programs, although Social Security, Medicaid, and a few other programs were exempted.
Unless it's stopped soon, the sequester is going to cause massive jobs losses, not only for federal workers, but also among private sector workers doing work for the government, and probably eventually among state and local government workers whose programs depend in part on federal spending.
Here are links to two articles to help make sense of what's going on. Just click on the title to go to the article. First we have a Washington Post article from March 1 titled, "The Sequester: Absolutely everything you could possibly need to know, in one FAQ." Second, we have an explanation of the politics of economic sabotage that got us into this mess, from Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute, titled "GOP Sequester Position Derails Recovery (Again)."