The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with Robert F Kennedy Jr as the head, has brought the number of staff positions from 82,000 to 62,000 as the Trump administration has been working to shrink the scope of the federal government as well as cut waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending.
Of the 20,000 staffers, 10,000 are to be let go from the agency and 10,000 left once the Trump administration came into office, sending out emails that offered severance packages for federal workers who quit.
“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,” Kennedy said in a press release from HHS. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”
The cuts come after there have already been around 10,000 voluntary departures from the agency after Trump began his second term in office. In a video released on X on Thursday, Kennedy said that the goal of slashing the spending at the agency is aimed at streamlining the department to make it more effective and to improve the services provided by