Approximately 80,000 federal workers involved in disease research, food inspection, and managing Medicare and Medicaid under the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department were offered the option to voluntarily leave their positions in exchange for up to $25,000 as part of President Donald Trump’s government reduction efforts.
The employees have until 5 p.m. on Friday to respond to this voluntary separation offer. The email was sent to staff throughout the department, including those working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Maryland.
This mass email reached a wide range of HHS employees just days before agency leaders are set to present plans for reducing their workforce. HHS is one of the federal government’s most expensive agencies, with an annual budget of about $1.7 trillion, mostly allocated to providing healthcare coverage for the millions of people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.
There was no immediate response from the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department on Sunday.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary under President Trump, has hinted at making significant staff reductions. Last year, he suggested he would swiftly remove all 600 employees from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s biomedical research organization. While he has not gone to that extreme, Kennedy mentioned in an interview last month, shortly after taking office, that he intended to eliminate some workers from the public health agencies.
“I have a list in my head,” Kennedy mentioned, referring to potential staff cuts at the agency. He criticized some workers for making “really bad decisions” regarding nutrition guidelines.
The Trump administration, supported by billionaire Elon Musk, has been making efforts to reduce the number of federal workers as part of a cost-cutting strategy. In January, most federal employees were offered deferred resignations with eight months of pay. Additionally, thousands of probationary employees have been fired across various federal agencies, including the Health and Human Services Department (HHS).
The recent decision to cut federal health workers comes at a time when the CDC is actively helping manage a serious measles outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico. This also coincides with ongoing discussions in Congress about significant reductions to Medicaid in the federal budget.
In the email, HHS employees are instructed to contact their local human resources office if they wish to apply for the voluntary separation offer.