The State Department on Friday began terminating more than 1,300 positions as part of the Trump administration’s effort to trim the size of the federal workforce.
The layoffs will affect 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with assignments in the US, according to a senior department official.
Employees began receiving termination notices in the morning informing them that their positions were being “abolished.”
By afternoon, several laid-off staffers were spotted tearfully departing the State Department’s headquarters. They were met by a crowd of clapping supporters outside the Harry S. Truman Building, near the White House.
“Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices,” read the message sent to the axed staffers.
Affected foreign service officers will be placed on administrative leave for 120 days before officially losing their jobs. The separation period for civil servants will be 60 days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the cuts will make the diplomatic department “more efficient and more focused.”
“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” Rubio told reporters in Malaysia Thursday. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”
The layoffs come days after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court order that had paused the Trump administration’s plans for “large-scale reductions in force” across several federal agencies.
State Department Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas warned staff on Thursday that the mass layoffs were imminent, noting in an email to employees that “once notifications have taken place, the Department will enter the final stage of its reorganization and focus its attention on delivering results-driven diplomacy.”
In May, the department provided Congress with its reorganization plan, which called for an 18% reduction in US-based staff.
State planned on scrapping some 300 divisions and offices, including those tasked with oversight of the war in Afghanistan, which ended in August of 2021, and resettling Afghan nationals that aided the US military effort in the Middle Eastern country.
Critics of the reorganization claim the reorganization undermines US interests.
“In less than six months, the US has shed at least 20 percent of its diplomatic workforce through shuttering of institutions and forced resignations,” the American Foreign Service Association said in a statement. “Losing more diplomatic expertise at this critical global moment is a catastrophic blow to our national interests.”
The diplomats union slammed the Trump administration for making the cuts during “a moment of great global instability” and argued that ““clear, institutional mechanisms” could have resolved issues with excess staffing.
“Instead, these layoffs are untethered from merit or mission. They target diplomats not for how they’ve served or the skills they have, but for where they happen to be assigned. That is not reform,” the group said.
With Post wires
The post State Department cuts over 1,300 staffers as part of Trump administration’s sweeping overhaul appeared first on New York Post.
