RFK Jr. begins slashing sprawling HHS workforce

The Health and Human Services Department on Tuesday began a round of layoffs that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said are needed to streamline the bloated agency and cut costs.

Mr. Kennedy plans to eliminate 10,000 HHS jobs and reduce the department’s workforce by another 10,000 positions through early retirements and buyouts offered earlier this year.

The layoffs hit what Mr. Kennedy called a bloated bureaucracy, which includes more than 100 press communications offices, at least 40 offices dedicated to issuing ID badges, dozens of procurement offices and nine human resources departments.

Employees began receiving layoff notices early Tuesday and said entire divisions were eliminated.

“Nearly every employee (myself included) in the division got a notice this morning, including leadership,” a worker at the department’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health’s Division of Oral Health posted on an online message board. “DOH basically no longer exists.”

The reductions fall under President Trump’s pledge to reduce the size and cost of government through the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk.

The cuts, retirements and buyouts make up about 25% of the workforce, and will shrink it from 82,000 to 62,000 employees.

The move will consolidate 28 divisions into 15 and create the Administration for Healthy America, or AHA.

Mr. Kennedy said in a March 27 video posted on social media that redundant departments and positions are being eliminated to make HHS “more efficient and more effective.”

Critics of the department’s restructuring warned on social media that the terminations are affecting critical positions that ensure food and drug safety and will put public health at risk.

Most of the Food and Drug Administration’s large press team, which Mr. Kennedy said worked in more than 100 department communications offices, were among those let go. Employees at the FDA, CDC and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which researches workplace hazards, also received termination notices.

Dozens of FDA staffers who regulate drugs and tobacco products received notices, including the office responsible for drafting regulations for tobacco products including electronic cigarettes. The notices came as the FDA’s tobacco chief was removed from his position.

“The general public likely won’t feel the results of these HHS layoffs immediately. But eventually, these layoffs will affect the health information available to people, access to care and prevention, and oversight of health and social services,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, an independent health research organization.

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee urged HHS employees who see wrongdoing to file whistleblower reports with the committee.

Mr. Kennedy said the agency is needlessly oversized and inefficient.

Its budget has increased by 38% and its staffing grew by 17% over the past 15 years.

“But all that money has failed to improve the health of Americans,” Mr. Kennedy said, pointing to statistics that indicate the U.S. has the highest rate of chronic disease despite significantly outspending other countries on public health.

“HHS is a sprawling bureaucracy, with hundreds of departments and committees,” Mr. Kennedy said.

“This leads to tremendous waste and duplication,” which has made the agency less efficient.

Half of the department’s employees do not physically show up at an office and are allowed to work remotely.

Mr. Kennedy said many of the agencies within the department do not communicate with each other and even work at cross purposes.

“Some of these little fiefdoms are so insulated and territorial they hoard our patient medical data and sell it for profit to each other,” Mr. Kennedy said.

The new Administration for a Healthy America will centralize duplicative offices and cut regional offices from 10 to five. The HHS restructuring will include a new priority: Ending the nation’s obesity epidemic and the epidemic of chronic illnesses “by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water and the elimination of environmental toxins,” Mr. Kennedy said.

A 2023 report from the CDC found more than 40% of U.S. adults were obese. The agency reported in February that chronic disease is also on the rise in the U.S. and puts “a major strain” on the health care system.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Mr. Kennedy said. “This department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”