The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiated layoffs on Tuesday, potentially affecting up to 10,000 employees. These actions follow a recent move to curtail collective bargaining rights for workers at HHS and other government entities.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a prominent health and medical research agency, experienced layoffs coinciding with the first day of its new director, .
Health Secretary announced a departmental restructuring plan last week. HHS agencies are responsible for various functions, including tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, funding medical research, ensuring the safety of food and medicine, and managing health insurance programs for a significant portion of the U.S. population.
The proposed plan involves consolidating agencies overseeing addiction services and community health centers under a new entity called the Administration for a Healthy America.
The anticipated layoffs could reduce HHS’s workforce to 62,000 positions, representing a reduction of nearly 25%. This includes 10,000 jobs lost through layoffs and another 10,000 through early retirement and voluntary separation.
At the NIH, the cuts reportedly included the removal of at least four directors of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers, who were placed on administrative leave, and the termination of almost all communications staff, according to a senior agency official who wished to remain anonymous.
According to an email seen by The Associated Press, senior employees from the Bethesda, Maryland, campus who were put on leave were offered a possible transfer to the Indian Health Service in locations including Alaska and given until end of Wednesday to respond.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) cautioned that these cuts could negatively impact responses to natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks, such as the current measles outbreak.
Murray stated on Friday, “They may as well be renaming it the Department of Disease because their plan is putting lives in serious jeopardy.”
In addition to federal health agency layoffs, state and local health departments are also facing cuts due to HHS’s decision last week to withdraw over $11 billion in COVID-19-related funding. While the full impact is still being assessed, some health departments have already identified hundreds of positions that may be eliminated due to the funding loss. Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, noted that some jobs have already been eliminated or are in the process of being eliminated.
Union representatives for HHS employees were informed on Thursday that 8,000 to 10,000 employees will be terminated. The department plans to focus on positions in human resources, procurement, finance, and information technology, particularly those in “high cost regions” or those deemed “redundant.”
In a video released on Thursday, Kennedy described the department he leads as an inefficient “sprawling bureaucracy.” He asserted that the department’s $1.7 trillion annual budget “has failed to improve the health of Americans.”
Kennedy promised, “I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less.”
The department provided a breakdown of some of the cuts on Thursday:
- 3,500 jobs at the Food and Drug Administration, which inspects and sets safety standards for medications, medical devices and foods.
- 2,400 jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors for infectious disease outbreaks and works with public health agencies nationwide.
- 1,200 jobs at the NIH.
- 300 jobs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Medicare and Medicaid.
While most CDC employees were not unionized previously, there has been increased interest this year due to the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce. Approximately 2,000 CDC employees in Atlanta belonged to the American Federation of Government Employees local bargaining unit, with hundreds more petitioning to join recently.
However, on Thursday night, Trump signed an executive order that would end collective bargaining for a large number of federal agencies, including the CDC and other health agencies.
Some Democratic lawmakers criticized the erosion of collective bargaining rights.
Reps. Gerald Connolly and Bobby Scott (both of Virginia) released a joint statement on Friday, saying, “President Trump’s brazen attempt to strip the majority of federal employees of their union rights robs these workers of their hard-fought protections.”
“This will only give Elon Musk more power to dismantle the people’s government with as little resistance from dedicated civil servants as possible — further weakening the federal government’s ability to serve the American people.”
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Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard, Amanda Seitz and Matthew Perrone in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed.