The Department of Health and Human Services is laying off thousands of employees, in some cases eliminating entire offices and programs.

HHS began sending reduction-in-force (RIF) notices around 5 a.m. Eastern Tuesday morning, according to more than half a dozen employees who spoke to Federal News Network.

Several HHS employees shared photos of staff waiting in long lines to get into their buildings. Employees targeted by the RIF learned their Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards were deactivated.

“The way people are finding out whether they are RIF’d this morning is to go through this very long process to get to the building and to go through security, and then badge-in at the main atrium. If their badge doesn’t work, they are corralled in front of everyone to wait for an escort to their office to pick up their things. It is so humiliating and degrading in the face of something so terrible,” an employee said.

A Food and Drug Administration employee said the department added security measures, including wanding employees before entering the building.

HHS said last week it was planning to eliminate 10,000 jobs through nonvoluntary layoffs. The department is also looking to cut another 10,000 employees through early retirement and buyout offers. Overall, the agency is looking to reduce its workforce to 62,000 employees.

“There are various divisions being completely RIF’d,” an HHS employee told Federal News Network. “The initial ‘Fork in the Road’ email promised that folks who would be let go ‘down the road’ would be treated with the ‘utmost respect and dignity.’ And what’s happening today is the exact opposite.”

The National Treasury Employees Union told bargaining unit members in an email last week that the RIFs would primarily impact support positions — including human resources, IT, procurement and finance.

However, an FDA employee said science and policy-related roles are also being eliminated.

“Because entire offices of support staff have been let go, we’re immediately running into problems. In my office, one of our labs has shut down today, because we’ve run out of supplies due to the halt on procurement. The people that could help the supply issue have been let go,” the FDA employee said.

‘There is no more staff in EEO’

RIF notices sent to FDA employees listed LaKeisha McClendon, the agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) director, as their point of contact, if they wished to file an employment discrimination complaint. But McClendon left the FDA several weeks ago and now works as the administrator for the Office of Human Rights and Equity Administrator for Howard County, Maryland.

“There is no more staff in EEO, so there is no one to appeal to at the Food and Drug Administration,” a second FDA employee said.

In the absence of EEO staff, all FDA employees will now need to take their claims to the acting FDA commissioner, who is the next in the line of delegated authority.

Employees at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services who received RIF notices were directed to send their EEO complaints to Anita Pinder, the agency’s director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. But Pinder died in November 2024.

“It’s more traumatizing for that staff, referencing their dead EEO director,” said an employee who attended Pinder’s funeral.

‘We followed the science. We told the truth’ 

Brian King, the director of the Center for Tobacco Products, told staff in an email that he had been placed on administrative leave after serving in the position for nearly three years.

“Together, we have moved mountains,” King wrote, telling staff that their office drove adult smoking rates down to 75-year lows and youth tobacco product use rates to 25-year lows, including a 70% decline in youth e-cigarette use over the past five years.

“As the center embarks on its next chapter, which will undoubtedly be met by uncertainty and challenges, I encourage you to hold your heads high and never compromise the guiding tenets that CTP has held dear since its inception. We obeyed the law. We followed the science. We told the truth,” King wrote.

The Office of Science Director Matthew Farrelly and Deputy Director Todd Cecil were also reassigned and put on administrative leave, according to another email obtained by Federal News Network.

Another HHS employee who received a RIF notice said all staff with the Office of Science and Data Policy and the Office of Policy and Program Support received RIF notices.