HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy announced the cuts on Thursday, saying the reductions will be part of a comprehensive reorganization of the department. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
HHS to lay off 10,000 employees and cut overall workforce by 20,000
Some components will be hit harder than others as the department says it is still eyeing ways to further "streamline its operations and agencies."
Updated March 27 at 1:20 p.m.
The Health and Human Services Department will slash its workforce by 20,000 employees, Secretary Robert Kennedy announced on Thursday, leading the agency to shrink by nearly 25%.
The department has leaned on incentives such as early retirements and deferred resignations to reach half of that total. It will now force cuts of another 10,000 workers, which a spokesman confirmed would take place through reductions in force, or layoffs.
The reductions will be part of a comprehensive reorganization of the department. The cuts will save $2 billion annually, Kennedy said, and the department will go from 28 divisions throughout the department down to 15. Department-wide functions such as human resources, IT, procurement, external affairs and policy will be centralized into the Administration for Healthy America and regional offices will be slashed in half to just five. HHS previously cut its general counsel's regional offices from 10 to four.
Kennedy noted he is instituting the cuts as part of President Trump’s executive order for all agencies to work with the Department of Government Efficiency to develop plans to slash their workforces through RIFs. Government Executive previously reported the National Institutes of Health, a component of HHS, faced a directive from the Elon Musk-backed DOGE to cut its workforce down to fiscal 2019 levels.
“As part of President Trump's DOGE workforce reduction initiative, we're going to streamline HHS, make our agency more efficient and more effective,” Kennedy said. “We're going to imbue the agency with a clear sense of mission to radically improve the health of Americans and to improve agency morale.”
The RIFs are expected to take effect May 27, according to the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents much of the HHS workforce. NTEU President Doreen Greenwald said the impacts of the cuts will be "devastating," endanger the health and safety of American families and inflict significant economic harm to both rural and urban areas.
Employees at HHS received no warning prior to the department’s announcement, according to several who spoke to Government Executive, and largely did not receive any follow up information after it went out. At least one NIH component, the Office of Extramural Research, scheduled meetings for Thursday afternoon to go over RIF plans and inform employees who would be let go.
The department did not appear to consult human resources leadership at the component level before making the announcement. One such official said there was “no involvement and no verification of the areas and impact.” A front-line employee said there was “zero communication about anything.”
“We’re all just on edge waiting for specifics,” the employee said.
The Food and Drug Administration is set to shed 3,500 full-time employees under the plan, according to an internal fact sheet obtained by Government Executive, cutting about 18% of the agency’s workforce. Drug, medical device and food reviewers, as well inspectors, will be spared from the cuts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will cut about 2,400 employees, according to the fact sheet, amounting to a reduction of 19%. It will gain employees from the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which handles natural disaster and public health emergency response and will fold into CDC. That change will reinforce CDC's "core mission to protect Americans from health threats,” HHS said.
The HHS fact sheet noted CDC would only gain 1,000 employees from ASPR, which currently employs around 5,000 individuals. It is unclear if all of the remaining staff will be subject to RIFs or be reassigned elsewhere.
NIH will cut 1,200 employees, which HHS said will occur by centralizing HR, procurement and communications across the agency’s various institutes and centers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is anticipating cutting 300 employees by focusing on “minor duplication” at the agency. HHS maintained that delivery of Medicare and Medicaid would not be impacted by the reductions.
The department suggested it was not currently planning additional cuts after it reduces its workforce by 20,000 employees, but it would "continue to look for further ways to streamline its operations and agencies.” Kennedy noted that HHS would “do more with less,” though he conceded “this will be a painful period” for the department.
In addition to the more back-end functions, the new Administration for Health America will fold into its structure the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. It will divide up the functions of the Administration for Community Living, which provides oversight of those serving older and disabled Americans, into CMS, the Administration for Children and Families and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.
ASPE itself will be combined with the Agency for Health Research and Quality into the Office of Strategy.
“I want every HHS employee to wake up every morning asking themselves, “What can I do to restore American Health?’” Kennedy said. “I want to empower everyone in the HHS family to have a sense of purpose and pride and a sense of personal agency and responsibility to this larger goal.”
Trump has called on all federal agencies to implement widespread RIFs, though some are hoping to avoid them by using incentives and attrition to downsize their workforces. HHS previously offered buyouts and early retirement incentives to its workforce. Several agencies have already begun laying off employees en masse, though most large agencies have not yet done so on a significant scale. HHS joins the Education Department and General Services Administration in instituting widespread layoffs.
Greenwald said NTEU will challenge the forthcoming layoffs.
"NTEU will pursue every opportunity to fight back on behalf of these dedicated civil servants and the agency’s overall mission," she said. "HHS workers have dedicated their careers to serving the American people, and sending any of them to the unemployment lines is nothing short of an intentional effort to weaken government and destroy the world’s finest public health system."
This story has been updated with additional detail.
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