State Department is firing over 1,300 employees under Trump administration plan

Kuala Lumpur | The State Department is firing more than 1,300 employees on Friday in line with a dramatic reorganisation plan initiated by the Trump administration earlier this year.

The department is sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the United States, said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters ahead of individual notices being 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 affected civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.

“In connection with the departmental reorganisation … 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 centralisation or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.” While lauded by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Republican allies as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner, more nimble and more efficient, the cuts have been roundly criticised by current and former diplomats who say they will weaken US influence and its ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.

The Trump administration has pushed to reshape American diplomacy and worked aggressively to shrink the size of the federal government, including mass dismissals as part of moves to dismantle whole departments like 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.

Rubio said officials took “a very deliberate step to reorganise 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 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he's attending the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. “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.

The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents diplomats, urged the State Department last month to hold off on job cuts.

Notices for a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate positions altogether, “should be a last resort,” association President Tom Yazdgerdi said. “Disrupting the Foreign Service like this puts national interests at risk — and Americans everywhere will bear the consequences.”

Michael Rigas, the department's deputy secretary for management and resources, said in a notice Thursday that select staffers would be informed if they were being laid off and called it part of the department's biggest reorganization in decades.

“Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force. First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States,” he said.

In late May, the State Department notified Congress of an updated reorganisation plan, proposing cuts to programmes beyond what had been revealed earlier by Rubio and an 18 per cent reduction of staff in the US, even higher than the 15 per cent initially floated in April.

The restructuring has been driven in part by the need to find a new home for the remaining functions of USAID, which was an early target of the Trump administration and then-aide Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

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.

A letter that the department had sent to Congress noted that the reorganisation 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 also is 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.