The Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced plans to reduce its workforce by 43%, amounting to approximately 2,700 jobs, as part of a reorganization effort.
Founded in 1953, the SBA’s mission is to support small businesses and administer small business and disaster recovery loans. During the pandemic, the agency played a vital role in distributing aid to small businesses. However, the current objective is to return staffing levels to what they were before the pandemic and to scale back some programs initiated under the Biden administration, according to SBA’s new leader, Kelly Loeffler.
Loeffler stated that the agency would eliminate positions that are non-essential to its core mission and consolidate various functions, bringing staffing numbers back to the levels seen during the Trump administration.
The SBA clarified that its loan guarantee, disaster assistance programs, and veteran operations will remain unaffected. The job cuts, which will reduce the SBA’s workforce from 6,500 to 3,800, will involve a mix of voluntary resignations, the expiration of temporary and COVID-era appointments, and some layoffs.
The layoffs at the Small Business Administration (SBA) are part of a broader initiative by the Trump Administration to reduce the size of the federal workforce, a campaign spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
In a separate announcement on Friday, Trump revealed that student loan management would be transferred to the SBA as part of a plan to reassign certain responsibilities from the Department of Education to other federal agencies. The SBA has yet to respond to requests for comment regarding this change.
