WASHINGTON: The US State Department is firing more than 1,300 employees on Friday in line with a dramatic reorganisation plan from the Trump administration that critics say will damage America’s global leadership and efforts to counter threats abroad.
The department has begun sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the United States, according to a senior department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters before individual notices were emailed to affected employees.
Foreign service officers affected will be placed immediately on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, according to an internal notice obtained by The Associated Press. For most civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.
“In connection with the departmental reorganization … the department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” the notice says. “Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.”
The move has been lauded as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner, more nimble and more efficient by US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Republican allies. However the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken US influence and the ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.
BIG CHANGES TO STATE DEPT WORK
The Trump administration has pushed to reshape US diplomacy and worked agrssively to shrink the federal government, including mass dismissals driven by the Department of Government Efficiency, and moves to dismantle whole departments of the US Agency for International Development and the Education Department.
A recent ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs to start, while lawsuits challenging the legality of the cuts continue to play out. The department had formally advised staffers on Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them soon.
The job cuts are large but considerably less than many had feared. In a May letter notifying Congress about the reorganization, the department said it had just over 18,700 US-based employees and was looking to reduce the workforce by 18% through layoffs and voluntary departures, including deferred resignation programs.
Rubio said officials took “a very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be 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,” he told reporters Thursday during a visit to Kuala Lumpur. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”
He said some of the cuts will be unfilled positions or those that are about to be vacant because an employee took an early retirement.
CRITICS SAY WILL HURT THE US ABROAD
The American Academy of Diplomacy, an association that includes hundreds of former senior diplomats, said the State Department layoffs “will seriously undermine the ability of our government to understand, explain, and respond to a complex and increasingly contested world.”
“At a time when the United States faces unprecedented challenges from strategic competitors and adversaries, ongoing conflicts in Central Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and emerging security threats, the decision to gut the Department of State’s institutional knowledge and operational capacity is an act of vandalism,” the organization said in a statement last week before the cuts were announced.
Former US diplomats echoed that sentiment, saying the process is not in line with what Congress had approved or how it’s been implemented under previous administrations.
“They’re doing it without any consideration of the worth of the individual people who are being fired,” said Gordon Duguid, a 31-year veteran of the foreign service under Trump and Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “They’re not looking for people who have the expertise … they just want people who say, ‘OK, how high’” to jump.
He added, “that’s a recipe for disaster.”
In a notice Thursday, Michael Rigas, deputy secretary for management and resources, said 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.”
BIG REORGANISATION OF THE STATE DEPT.
The department told Congress in May of an updated reorganization plan, proposing cuts to programs beyond what had been revealed a month earlier by Rubio and an 18% reduction of US-based staff, higher than the 15% initially floated.
The State Department is planning to eliminate some divisions tasked with oversight of America’s two-decade involvement in Afghanistan, including an office focused on resettling Afghan nationals who worked alongside the US military.
The department’s letter to Congress noted that the reorganization will affect more than 300 bureaus and offices, saying it is eliminating divisions it describes as doing unclear or overlapping work. It says Rubio believes “effective modern diplomacy requires streamlining this bloated bureaucracy.”
That letter was clear that the reorganization is also intended to eliminate programs — particularly those related to refugees and immigration, as well as human rights and democracy promotion — that the Trump administration believes have become ideologically driven in a way that is incompatible with its priorities and policies.
