US Department of Health employees offered severance packages with one-time payment
US Department of Health and Human Services (photo: wikipedia.org)
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is offering 80,000 of its employees the option to resign with a one-time payment of $25,000. This is part of President Donald Trump's budget-cutting program, reports the Associated Press.
AP notes that employees can begin accepting the offer starting Monday and have until 5:00 p.m. on Friday to respond to the so-called voluntary separation offer.
An email was sent to all department employees, including those working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration in Maryland.
The email was sent to a wide range of HHS employees, arriving in their inboxes just days before department heads were due to present plans for workforce reductions.
The US Department of Health and Human Services is one of the most expensive federal agencies, with an annual budget of approximately $1.7 trillion. Most of the funds are spent on healthcare services for millions of people covered by Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the disabled and low-income Americans) programs.
In February, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to immediately lay off 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which conducts biomedical research. He stated that some workers had made very poor decisions regarding nutrition recommendations.
AP notes that the latest step in reducing the number of federal health employees comes at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping to fight a deadly measles outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico, while lawmakers discuss deep cuts to the Medicaid program in the federal budget.
Reduction of US federal employees
In January, the administration of Donald Trump established the US Government Efficiency Department (DOGE) and appointed billionaire Elon Musk as its head.
The department is tasked with reducing the number of federal employees as part of a broader effort to cut budgetary spending.
In February, most federal employees were offered a deferral of termination with eight months of salary payments. Thousands of workers who were on probationary periods were also laid off across various federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services.
Recently, employees were required to report their weekly work results. Those who ignored this directive were threatened with termination.
At the same time, unions have declared these actions by the Trump administration to be illegal.
