Trump administration fires 5,200 HHS employees

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The Department of Health and Human Services is losing an estimated  5,200 probationary employees, according to an audio recording of a National Institutes of Health department meeting reported by the Associated Press. 

The firings are part of the Trump Administration’s move to get rid of nearly all probationary employees, according to AP.  Staff were notified of the cuts on Friday and over the weekend.

Probationary workers are being let go as part of efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force headed by billionaire Elon Musk, to shrink government spending.

The Trump administration is cutting about 1,300 employees, or 10% of the workforce, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to NPR. As many as 1,500 employees at the National Institutes of Health were laid off.

On Friday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that funds for the Affordable Care Act Navigator Program would be slashed from $98 million in 2024 to $10 million. This means that the pay for people performing the function of helping consumers choose an ACA plan is being cut, as is likely their navigator jobs. Funding for the navigator program was also slashed under the first Trump administration.

WHY THIS MATTERS

News of the firings has come from anonymous sources within the affected agencies.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered HHS, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration to restore access to their web pages after removing information to comply with an executive order by President Donald Trump.

While CMS issued the notice of its cut in navigator funding on its website, information on the mass layoffs of government employees by the Trump administration has leaked out and has not been posted.

HHS officials are reportedly not answering questions about the specifics of the layoffs other than to say that it is “following the administration’s guidance and is taking action to support the president’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government,” according to the AP report. 

THE LARGER TREND

The job cuts came one day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in to oversee HHS.

HHS has 13 operating divisions, including 10 agencies in the U.S. Public Health Service and three human services agencies. It runs the NIH, the FDA and the CDC and the country’s Medicare and Medicaid programs. It employs more than 80,000 people.

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org