HHS employees began receiving dismissal notices on April 1 as part of an agency-wide plan to lay off 10,000 full-time employees, NBC News reported.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on March 27 shared plans for the “dramatic restructuring,” which aims to downsize the organization from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees.
Layoffs at affected HHS departments include around:
- 3,500 FDA employees. Drug, medical device and food reviewer roles will not be affected, nor will inspectors, according to a March 27 HHS fact sheet.
- 2,400 CDC employees.
- 300 CMS employees.
- 1,200 National Institutes of Health employees.
“Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a March 27 news release. “This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves.”
Here are five things to know:
1. The layoffs began April 1 across HHS, including at the FDA and CDC, according to an ABC News report. Among the employees being laid off, some were informed they had been placed on administrative leave and lost access to their office, effective April 1.
2. The dismissal notices were expected to go out on March 28 but were delayed so that “all the data could be triple checked over the weekend,” a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. The cuts also hit divisions overseeing infectious disease response, drug approvals and health insurance programs. The FDA’s entire media team was also laid off.
3. The notices come less than a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to halt or slow collective bargaining for agencies with national security responsibilities, CBS News reported April 1.
4. HHS also plans to streamline department functions, consolidating 28 divisions with “many redundant units” into 15 new divisions, including a new Administration for a Healthy America.
The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response — responsible for public health emergency and national disaster response — will transfer to the CDC. Further, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation will be merged with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to create the Office of Strategy.
5. Programs that support disabled Americans and older adults will be integrated into HHS agencies such as CMS and the Administration for Children and Families. The change will not affect Medicare or Medicaid services.
