1 Apr 2025

HHS Will Axe 10,000 Workers Including Entire FOIA Offices

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The Department of Health and Human Services announced it plans to cut one quarter of its workforce, including 10,000 through Reduction In Force layoffs.

The remainder of the intended 20,000 job cuts are to be achieved through attrition and resignations. Toward that end, some directors within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been “offered” a transfer to the Indian Health Service, perhaps in a remote location, to force them to resign. Affected directors include:

  • Karen Hacker of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
  • Jono Mermin of the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention
  • Kayla Laserson, director of the Global Health Center

HHS has 80,000 employees spread across its agencies. Job cuts include:

  • Food and Drug Administration: 3,500 including the entire Freedom of Information Act office staff
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 2,500 including the entire Freedom of Information Act office staff
  • National Institutes of Health: 1,200 including the entire Freedom of Information Act office staff
  • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: 300

By law, each agency must be able to respond to FOIA requests. It is not clear how that requirement will be met at agencies that lose their entire FOIA offices.

Workers were advised to download their

  • personnel files
  • job description for their current role
  • pay stubs
  • tax documents
  • records of awards
  • contact information for their supervisor (assuming that person will still have a job) and human resources

Many federal employees have found their access to not only email but all such information cut off without notice when they have been fired or placed on administrative leave. Employees terminated in the RIF will not be able to get into their office buildings again, so all HHS workers are advised to take their laptop computers home each evening.

Most federal workers caught in recent firings have been put on administrative leave. Some HHS workers will be expected to continue working until their separation date which is expected to be around 27 May 2025.

HHS is to be radically restructured from 28 divisions to 15.

Click here for more details.