Thousands of Health and Human Services (HHS) employees across the country were dismissed on Tuesday as the Trump administration began implementing its controversial workforce reduction plan, which could ultimately remove 10,000 staff from the department through forced layoffs.
The job cuts mark the first tangible impact of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s departmental overhaul announced last week, landing just days after Donald Trump moved to strip collective bargaining rights from workers at HHS and other federal agencies.
Kennedy’s restructuring goal is meant to dramatically reshape the department that oversees the US’s food supply, monitors disease outbreaks, conducts critical medical research, and administers health insurance for nearly half the country. He has also said he will create a new office – “the administration for a healthy America” – which is meant to absorb agencies controlling billions of dollars in funding that manage addiction services and community health centers.
When finished, the cuts are expected to reduce HHS staffing from 82,000 to 62,000 positions – slashing nearly a quarter of its workforce through a combination of layoffs and early retirement offers.
Union representatives were notified last Thursday that 8,000 to 10,000 employees will be terminated, with positions in human resources, procurement, finance and IT targeted. Jobs in “high cost regions” and those deemed “redundant or duplicative” will be prioritized for elimination, according to a reduction of force email seen by the Guardian.
The department has outlined specific job losses across a number of agencies, including 3,500 positions at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and 300 at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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