The Trump administration plans to reduce the workforce of the Ministry of Health and Social Services by almost a quarter, managers announcement Thursday, as part of a major restructuring of the department.
The managers of several health agencies now run to determine the details on how the reorganization will have an impact on their work.
Trump officials in several parts of the department said they were aimed at implementing a large part of the changes quickly, often within 10 days.
The changes constitute a workforce which will be around 33% smaller than it was at the end of the Biden administration. There were around 92,620 employees in the department in September 2024, according to Federal recordingsAgainst 81,917 at the end of the Trump administration.
Some 10,000 full -time employees will be cut through layoffs, in addition to other vacant stations that will not be replaced. Thousands of full -time staff have already left the department in recent months, in addition to thousands of other contractor and scholarships that have also been eliminated.
“When combined with other HHS efforts, including early retirement and road fork, restructuring leads to a total reduction of 82,000 to 62,000 full -time employees,” the ministry said in a statement, saying taxpayers would save $ 1.8 billion.
A information sheet Shared with journalists and health officials indicates that “no additional cup is currently planned” beyond those announced Thursday and in recent weeks.
The Secretary of Health and Social Services, Robert F. Kennedy, will reduce 3,500 jobs from the Food and Drug Administration, according to the information sheet. The administration also removes 1,200 jobs from the National Institutes of Health.
“This reduction will not affect medicines, medical devices or food examiners, and this will have no impact on inspectors,” said the information sheet about the FDA modifications.
At the CDC, the ministry claims that the workforce will decrease by around 2,400 employees to “focus on returning to its main mission to prepare and respond to epidemics and epidemics”. An American official said that cuts are not intended to undermine the work of infectious diseases at the agency.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the workforce will decrease “approximately 300 employees, emphasizing the reduction of minor duplication” at the CMS, which had already been faced with hiring limits due to a tightening of the budget in recent years. Reorganization will have no impact on Medicare or Medicaid services, he says.
The ministry reduction in force “is mainly addressed to administrative positions”, according to a letter sent Thursday to the unions of Mutliple HHS agencies, but “will also target roles in high cost regions” and which are “determined to be redundant or double” with others.
“Specific opinions for employees can be sent on Friday March 28,” according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by CBS News.
“The entire federal workforce reduces the workforce now. It will therefore be a painful period for HHS,” said Kennedy video Announcement shared Thursday by the department.
The Wall Street Journal The details first reported the reorganization.
Health managers had been preparing since Strong cuts To be announced this week, as part of the Restructuring of Balayte Architeized with the Cost Reduction Working Group of the Ministry of Efficiency of the Ministry of the White House.
Several officials of the health agency said they saw intensified security measures this morning. Managers have been largely in ignorance of changes, said the officials said, apart from a handful of changes already announced within the department.
A major change announced Earlier this month would considerably lead to the number of general counsel offices, by shrinking the ranks of lawyers in the department. A health official said that closings would constitute the elimination of two -thirds of HHS regional lawyers.
Images Alex Wong / / Getty
Kennedy told the White House earlier this week that the DOGE The team led by billionaire Elon Musk had “identified extraordinary waste in my department and HHS”. He cited what they considered as duplicated work for communication, supply, computer and HR services in 40 operational HHS divisions.
“We are with the help of Elon to eliminate layoffs,” Kennedy said on Monday.
One of Kennedy’s biggest changes proposed is to create a new group of agencies called the administration for a healthy America, or AHA, which, according to him, will save money and “will radically improve our quality of service”.
“We are going to impregnate the agency with a clear sense of mission to radically improve the health of Americans and improve the morale of agencies. We will eliminate a whole soup of alphabet from sand agencies in the department while preserving their basic functions,” said Kennedy in Thursday’s video.
The new administration will consolidate the work with the office of the assistant secretary for health, the administration of health resources and services, the administration of drug addiction and mental health services, the agency for the register of substances and diseases toxc and the National Professional and Health Security Institute “in a new unified entity”, declared the ministry.
This new AHA agency also effectively combines many priorities from Kennedy “Make America Healthy Again” under one roof, ranging from this year to update to food directives public health declarations on the use of fluoride. The work will be supported by the American general surgeon, according to the information sheet.
Health Resources and Services Administration officials expect deep discounts of the merger, in particular the staff of the agency’s human resources and providers, two officials said.
The HRSA supplier’s relief office had been charged to surveillance for dollars in aid during the COVVI-19 pandemic in the health care industry. More than a billion dollars of debts to the federal government may not be removed if the team’s work has remained unfinished, said an official.
“Our budget was already covered by the original funding and was recovered five times if we had been authorized to do our job,” said the official.
The administration of preparation and strategic response, which was raised in a separate agency under the Biden administration to supervise tasks such as the pandemic stock, will be absorbed by the CDC.
The two agencies are now rushing to establish plans by Saturday on how to merge the two, said a health official.
The work of the agency for research and the quality of health care, which were surprised up to 90% of their staff to be cut by DOGE, will be merged with another agency to create the strategy office.
And the functions of the administration for life -targeted community life on the elderly and people with disabilities will be transferred to other agencies, said the ministry, including centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“The whole federal workforce reduces its workforce now. It will therefore be a painful period for HHS,” said Kennedy in his remarks.
The details of which will be exactly cut off from the department within the agencies remain vague, as part of the new reorganization plans. Thursday morning, several federal health officials said they had received few directives from the department, apart from Kennedy’s announcement.
In his remarks in the video, Kennedy said they “focused on the development of excess administrators while increasing the number of scientists and health providers” in changes.
“We are going to rationalize our agency and eliminate redundancies and invite everyone to line up behind a simple and daring mission: I want each HHS employee to wake up every morning by wondering:” What can I do to restore American health today “”, he added.