Key points
- Job cuts likely at US State Department
- Select staffers would be informed if they were being laid off: Official
- Official did not specify the number of staff
WASHINGTON: The US State Department formally advised staffers Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them “soon”, coming as part of dramatic changes to the agency that the Trump administration announced earlier this year, AP reported.
AP cited Michael Rigas, the department’s deputy secretary for management and resources, as saying that select staffers would be informed if they were being laid off and called it part of the department’s biggest reorganization in decades.
Trump’s plans
AFP reported that the announcement by the department came just two days after the Supreme Court lifted a block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to potentially lay off tens of thousands of government employees.
Rigas did not specify the number of staff that will be cut, but when asked how it compares to a figure of 1,800 from a notification to Congress earlier this year, the senior State Department official said: “I would say that is pretty close.”
Since returning to the White House in late January, US President Donald Trump has made reducing the federal workforce one of his main priorities, pursuing drastic cuts to jobs and spending through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was previously headed by his former close advisor Elon Musk.
