HHS has officially reinstated all 954 employees who received layoff notices during the federal government shutdown.
In a Nov. 21 court filing, HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources Thomas Nagy Jr. wrote agency workers who received reduction-in-force notices during the shutdown had been notified via email that the layoffs were being rescinded, noting they “should return to work on their next regularly scheduled workday,” The Hill reported.
Mr. Nagy also wrote that affected employees would receive retroactive pay for the shutdown period, which ran from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12.
The Trump administration began issuing RIF notices to federal workers Oct. 10, including to about 1,760 HHS employees. Agency officials later said the department had intended to lay off only 982 workers and that hundreds of CDC employees were mistakenly terminated due to a procedural error. Many of those notices were quickly rescinded after the issue was identified.
After several unions representing federal workers sued the administration over the shutdown layoffs, a federal judge in California issued a temporary restraining order to block job cuts. HHS, however, said the order didn’t apply to the department because the affected employees weren’t represented by the unions that filed the lawsuit.
The shutdown ended Nov. 12 after Congress passed a short-term spending package funding most federal agencies — including HHS — through January. The agreement included a White House commitment to rehire all federal employees laid off during the shutdown and issue retroactive pay. However, the deal did not resolve the standoff over ACA premium subsidies, which remains a point of contention heading into December.
“HHS is following the language in the continuing resolution that ended the Democrat-led shutdown and is not implementing reductions in force,” the agency said in a statement to Becker’s Nov. 25.
