Federal workers wonder what’s next after mass layoffs
From wildfire resiliency to helping local farmers: What’s at stake with mass layoffs
The Department of Veterans Affairs has initiated a plan to lay off at least 76,000 employees to comply with President Donald Trump’s order last week calling for broader cuts to the federal workforce, according to a memo sent to department leadership on Tuesday.
The new round of cuts could impact even more federal workers than the first wave, which targeted probationary employees.
The memo, sent by VA Chief of Staff Christopher Sykes to undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and other top officials at the apartment, sets out a goal to return its staffing to 2019 levels of 399,957 employees as part of a “reduction in force and reorganization plan,” according to a copy of the memo shared with USA TODAY. That would require a cut of at least 76,000 department employees, according to a VA news release last month that listed employees at 479,000 before more than 2,000 were laid off before the Trump administration’s first phase of layoffs.
Sykes’ memo calls for the VA to “coordinate actions with DOGE” and the rest of the Trump administration to implement the cuts.
The Department of Veterans did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump orders second wave of firings
Last week, Trump kickstarted a second wave of firings of federal workers that was more widespread with a memo initiating “large-scale reductions in force” at agencies across the government. The first phase of layoffs targeted probationary employees – those within a year or two of their hire date – after Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” email offered employees a buyout to quit their jobs.
The next wave, by contrast, will not be limited to probationary workers, according to the memo.
At the VA, the Trump administration laid off more than 2,400 workers last month as part of the cuts. Some employees were quietly rehired after they were fired, including at least a dozen workers on the Veterans Crisis Line, a hotline for suicidal veterans, according to employees and congressional sources.
VA Secretary Doug Collins claimed that none of those laid off were “mission-critical,” and that crisis line workers had not been impacted. A crisis line employee speaking on the condition of anonymity said a coworker who was dismissed last week and then rehired helped with emergency dispatch.
Democrats decry VA layoffs
The VA memo prompted an outcry from Democrats who called it a step toward total privatization of the department.
“Since January 20, this Administration has launched an all-out assault undermining that progress and attacking the VA workforce and the veterans it serves,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “This memo makes their goal crystal clear: they want to roll back the PACT Act,” he added, referring to a bill that provides healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, “while starving VA’s ability to meet increased demand in order to justify privatizing VA.”
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement, “These arbitrary mass layoffs, at the very least, are going to mean longer processing times for disability or education claims veterans are desperately waiting on, and longer wait times for veterans to see a doctor – to say nothing of the serious threat to patient safety or the threat of VA medical centers closing. Make no mistake: this will only empower Elon to privatize VA by breaking it first.”
With the second largest federal workforce after the Department of Defense, the VA grew by more than 50,000 employees throughout the Biden administration.