Mass layoffs at Veteran Affairs dept soon? Thousands of jobs to be shed by end of this fiscal year
VA to cut nearly 30,000 jobs
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The Department of Veteran Affairs has taken a U-turn and has dropped plans to lay off tens of thousands of personnel in August, a news release from the department indicated Monday. It announced on Monday it is walking back plans for mass layoffs at the agency but says it will still shed tens of thousands of jobs by the end of fiscal year 2025, reports CNN. A reduction of 30,000 employees constitutes about 6.2% of the VA's workforce, based on 484,000 total VA employees as of January 1, 2025.The VA is scrapping those plans for now, but it is on pace to reduce the total number of staffers by nearly 30,000, 'through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition,' the agency said in a news release, adding that those cuts will eliminate 'the need for a large-scale reduction-in-force.'It was reported in March that VA leadership outlined a plan to shed more than 76,000 workers as part of the Trump administration's widespread efforts to reduce the federal workforce. The department originally planned to reduce its staff to 2019 levels, or just under 400,000.The VA said in its release that it had "roughly 484,000 employees on Jan. 1, 2025" — meaning the initial plans would have required the VA to cut upwards of 80,000 jobs.As for next year, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz said, 'VA is not planning to make any other major changes to staffing levels beyond those outlined in the release.'The release insists the reductions 'do not impact Veteran care or benefits.' 'All mission-critical positions are exempt' from the deferred resignations and voluntary early retirements, the agency said.'A department-wide RIF is off the table, but that doesn't mean we're done improving VA. Our review has resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving Veterans that we will continue to pursue,' Collins said in the statement.The US Veteran Affairs Department will make two-thirds fewer employee cuts this fiscal year than it first targeted. This means it will reduce staff by about 30,000 rather than 80,000, the agency said, reported news agency Reuters.At the start of the Trump administration, the agency employed about around 4,80,000 and it and expects to end the fiscal year in September with nearly 450,000 staff. Under President Donald Trump's program to downsize the federal government, the agency had planned to reach just under 400,000 employees which attracted widespread condemnation from military veteran groups and Democrats.The agency said in a statement it was on pace to reduce its staff "through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition." It did not say why it no longer needed to make further cuts.The initial layoff plan was significantly larger than job cuts proposed at other federal agencies — a move that could have backfired politically for Trump, who brands himself as a staunch defender of the U.S. military and veterans. Between January and June, the Department of Veterans Affairs cut nearly 17,000 positions, and it expects nearly 12,000 more employees to leave by September 30, according to the agency.'A department-wide reduction in force is off the table — but that doesn't mean we're done improving the VA,' said VA Secretary Doug Collins in a statement. As of March, nearly 9 million veterans were enrolled in the VA Health Care System.A spokesperson for the VA said in a statement Monday that it spent "nearly four months conducting a holistic review of the department to see what needs to be changed." The department claimed that in recent months, the VA has improved services for veterans, citing "huge drops in the number of Veterans waiting for disability benefits, sizeable increases in claims processing productivity, and extraordinary progress regarding our electronic health record modernization."The spokesperson said the original number of 80,000 staff cuts "got employees thinking outside of the box to come up with new and better ways of serving Veterans," and the "main goal all along has been creating the best possible experiences and outcomes" for veterans and their families.
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