By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-04-01 16:15:19 | Updated at 2025-04-02 21:13:01
1 day ago
Scores of Department of Health and Human Services employees received layoff notices Monday night and Tuesday morning in keeping with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s overhaul plans.
Job cuts took effect across HHS agencies — including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — and at all levels of seniority.
“This RIF [Reduction in Force] action does not reflect directly on your service, performance, or conduct,” one email blast informed employees, Politico reported.
The cuts kicked off as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya began his first day at the helm of the NIH, one of the key subagencies under HHS.
Long lines of workers surrounded agency headquarters in Washington, DC, as department officials sorted out who was still employed.
Several former officials at HHS fumed over the cuts.
“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed,” former FDA commissioner Robert Califf vented on LinkedIn.
“I believe that history will see this [as] a huge mistake,” he added. “I will be glad if I’m proven wrong, but even then, there is no good reason to treat people this way.”
Last week, Kennedy announced plans to slash the health department’s staff by 10,000 — joining an additional 10,000 who left federal employment voluntarily.
The secretary’s plan, developed in coordination with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), calls for HHS headcount to drop by 24%, to 62,000 from 82,000.
The overhaul is meant to consolidate 28 divisions of HHS into 15 main units — with 3,500 job eliminations at the FDA; 2,400 at CDC; 1,200 at NIH; and 300 at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to a HHS fact sheet.
The workforce reduction plan was expected to save taxpayers $1.3 billion annually, a fraction of HHS’ roughly $1.7 trillion budget.
“There are cuts across the federal government. It’s hard on everybody. But our agency, which is the biggest agency in government, twice the size of Pentagon … grew by 38% [in] budget during the Biden administration,” Kennedy told NewsNation host Chris Cuomo last week about the cuts.
“And public health went down by every metric by which you measure public health. It decreased with all the money being thrown at it.”
The Post reached out to reps for HHS and the American Federation of Government Employees union for comment..
