HHS is laying off 10,000 employees and closing regional offices. How will that impact the Philly area?
The Department of Health and Human Services employs workers at the FDA, CDC, and NIH in Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services plans to lay off 10,000 workers, close some regional offices, and consolidate divisions as part of a restructuring plan the department announced Thursday.
It’s just the latest wave of federal workforce cuts. Earlier this month, the Department of Education cut over 1,000 employees — nearly half of its workforce — and probationary workers have been laid off from various agencies in Philadelphia and across the country.
President Donald Trump’s administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have set out to shrink the federal workforce in an effort to slash government costs.
The department’s reduction in force is expected to take effect on May 27, the union that represents HHS workers was advised, according to Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union. The union represents some 18,500 HHS employees nationwide.
In a statement shared via email, Greenwald called the plan “disastrous” and said if it is carried out “the impact to public health services across the country will be devastating.”
“The American people do not support indiscriminate cuts curtailing or eliminating local health programs, endangering the health and safety of children and families, and inflicting real economic harm in small towns and big cities across the country,” she said. “The administration’s claims that such deep cuts to the Food and Drug Administration and other critical HHS offices won’t be harmful are preposterous. These attempts to lay waste to the federal government jeopardizes our nation’s ability to protect and serve its own citizens.”
Here’s a look at what HHS layoffs and changes have been announced and how they could impact the Philadelphia area.
What happened?
Overall, the department will downsize to 62,000 positions — losing 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers encouraged by the Trump administration.
HHS will also consolidate its current 28 divisions into 15. The department currently has 10 regional offices, which will be reduced to five.
One of those regional offices is based in Philadelphia and serves Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., according to the department’s website. The office is at 801 Market St.
“Our department is filled for the most part with competent, conscientious public servants, and yet the agency has been inefficient as a whole,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a video posted to YouTube on Thursday. “As part of President Trump’s DOGE workforce reduction initiative, we’re gonna streamline HHS and make our agency more efficient and more effective.”
He went on to add that “an entire alphabet soup” of departments and agencies will be eliminated while “preserving their core functions,” under the creation of a new organization that will be known as the Administration for a Healthy America.
“We’re gonna do more with less,” he said.
Kennedy outlined two goals in the video: saving taxpayers money by making the department more efficient, and improving the quality of service. The department said in a news release that the changes would save taxpayers $1.8 billion a year.
HHS aims to decrease the number of “excess administrators” while increasing the number of “scientists and front-line health providers,” Kennedy said.
“This will be a painful period for HHS,” he said of the layoffs.
What do these workers do?
HHS work includes monitoring infectious diseases, inspecting foods and hospitals, and overseeing health insurance programs for nearly half the country.
The department includes employees of the FDA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
How many HHS employees work in the Philadelphia area?
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, there are 337 HHS employees in Philadelphia, 23 in Montgomery County, 11 in Delaware County, and seven in Bucks County as of September 2024.
Pennsylvania had 1,305 employees at HHS, New Jersey had 493, and Delaware had 98 as of September 2024, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
In Pennsylvania, some 245 employees work at the FDA, 94 at the NIH, and 308 at the CDC, according to OPM data.
What jobs will be cut?
HHS provided on Thursday a breakdown of cuts at the FDA, the CDC, the NIH, and CMS:
3,500 jobs at the FDA, which inspects and sets safety standards for medications, medical devices, and foods.
2,400 jobs at the CDC, which monitors for infectious disease outbreaks and works with public health agencies nationwide.
1,200 jobs at the NIH, the world’s leading public health research arm.
300 jobs at CMS, which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The Associated Press and staff reporter Joe Yerardi contributed to this article.