The mastermind of President Donald Trump’s effort to downsize the federal workforce, Russ Vought, promised to make use of the federal government shutdown to advance his objective of “shuttering the paperwork.”
Introduced with a layoff plan that might have moved in that route, officers on the Division of Well being and Human Companies scaled it method again, POLITICO has discovered. It was one other instance, like a number of through the layoffs led by Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity this spring, by which Trump’s company heads have pushed again efficiently towards top-down cuts they considered as reckless.
POLITICO obtained an HHS doc from late September, the shutdown’s eve, that mentioned the division needed to chop practically 8,000 jobs, based mostly on steering from Vought’s funds workplace. On Oct. 10, HHS solely went forward with 1,760. Within the two weeks since, the quantity has dwindled to 954, because the division has rescinded practically half of the full, blaming a coding error.
The disorganized dealing with of the layoffs is harking back to Musk’s DOGE effort, by which workers have been rehired after being fired, typically on courtroom orders, typically as a result of company officers objected. In every case, the layoffs rattled company managers and traumatized workers, as Vought needed, however haven’t gone practically as far in downsizing the federal government as forecast.
Whereas the practically 8,000-person layoff plan this month was largely scuttled by prime company officers who intervened earlier than the cuts could possibly be made, the whiplash method by which it was proposed after which scaled again reveals that the administration remains to be following the DOGE playbook.
“These look like leftovers from DOGE. I don’t know anybody — together with within the White Home — who helps such cuts,” a senior administration official advised POLITICO in explaining the pullback from the promised mass layoffs. The official, granted anonymity to debate confidential issues, pointed to the involvement of a staffer who was a part of the DOGE effort in producing the administration doc.
That doc got here to its preliminary tally of seven,885 layoffs at HHS by including workers who could be furloughed through the shutdown, in addition to staff in divisions that might be shuttered if Congress handed Trump’s fiscal 2026 funds proposal. Trump’s Might funds plan referred to as for a 25 % reduce to HHS, however lawmakers have rejected it within the appropriations payments now in course of.
HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard advised POLITICO in a press release that HHS made its layoff record “based mostly upon positions designated as non-essential previous to the Democrat-led authorities shutdown.” She added: “As a consequence of a current courtroom order, HHS shouldn’t be presently taking actions to implement or administer the reduction-in-force notices.”
In response to the doc reviewed by POLITICO, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being was to take the toughest hit amongst HHS companies, 4,545 layoffs, or roughly 1 / 4 of its workforce. It ended up firing nobody.
A federal choose in San Francisco blocked the firing of 362 of the 954 HHS workers who did obtain the October layoff notices. Extra might be shielded after further federal worker unions joined the lawsuit on Wednesday.
In congressional testimony earlier this yr, Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned he had downsized his division’s workers to 62,000 from 82,000 when he took workplace. He’s nowhere shut. An HHS contingency plan produced upfront of the shutdown mentioned the division nonetheless employed 79,717. Staff who took a Sept. 30 buyout supply from Musk would convey that decrease, although the quantity who did is unknown as a result of the White Home has not launched agency-by-agency totals and has stopped publishing company employment updates.
It’s unclear who inside the Trump administration got here up with the preliminary plan for the shutdown layoffs. Hilliard didn’t reply to POLITICO’s query about who inside HHS was accountable. Thomas Nagy, the HHS deputy assistant secretary for human sources, has been the one updating the choose, Susan Illston of the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of California, concerning the layoffs.
The expertise of the fired 954, whose final work day is scheduled for early December, mirrors the chaos of DOGE’s spring layoffs, by which workers have been left questioning whether or not they nonetheless had jobs amidst lawsuits and officers have been compelled to backtrack and rehire fired staff.
In a single such occasion, Kennedy advised a Home panel in June that he had appealed on to Vought to verify Head Begin funding was protected after the early schooling and well being care program was omitted of the president’s funds proposal. In one other case, HHS fired after which rehired an award-winning Parkinson’s researcher. Kennedy additionally advised senators that he introduced again tons of of staffers on the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being. That got here after West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and others protested.
Now many HHS workers are having déjà vu.
The scenario is harking back to the expertise some former workers of the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth had through the Trump administration dismantling of the international support company early this yr.
Some furloughed workers at HHS, for instance, didn’t have entry to their work emails to obtain notices informing them they have been laid off this month.
“There have been people who didn’t even know in the event that they have been in RIF standing till they obtained the exhausting copy packet within the mail two days in the past,” a laid-off worker on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention mentioned, utilizing the acronym for “reduction-in-force.”
An identical scenario performed out at HHS’ Workplace of Inhabitants Affairs, the place practically the entire roughly 50 workers have been laid off two weeks in the past, in line with one individual with information of the scenario talking anonymously for concern of retribution. The workplace, which is congressionally mandated, manages tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in funding for household planning and teenage being pregnant prevention packages.
Three fired workers from the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Companies Administration — granted anonymity to supply particulars concerning the firings with out concern of retribution — mentioned that lots of the roughly 170 workers reduce from the company earlier this month are getting bodily copies of their termination notices mailed to them as a result of they’re shut out of their e-mail accounts.
“DOGE by no means actually left, it simply appears totally different now,” one of many SAMHSA workers mentioned.
Amanda Friedman and Sophie Gardner contributed reporting.
Tim Röhn is a worldwide reporter at Axel Springer and head of investigations for WELT, POLITICO Germany and Enterprise Insider Germany.