A voluntary acquisition was offered to resign from the profession on Friday night, according to those receiving the email and administrative staff.
Approximately 80,000 employees at the agency received unsigned emails on Friday night, with a deadline set to accommodate Friday, March 14th.
The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a February interview with Fox News about “Ingraham Angle,” Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he has a “general list” of staff in the department he wants to remove.
“If you’re in good science, you have nothing to worry about,” Kennedy said. “If you care about public health, there’s nothing to worry about. If you’re working in the pharmaceutical industry, I think you’d say you should leave the pharmaceutical industry.”
HHS oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which provide health insurance coverage to a significant portion of the US population. The agency also oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which significantly reduced its workforce last month.
Experts warn that cuts at HHS could hinder Kennedy’s ability to push his priorities, such as changing vaccine policies and eliminating unhealthy foods.
“It’s one of the challenges Kennedy faces,” Dorit Rice, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco, said after confirming the senator last month. “That challenge is exacerbated by his lack of expertise in the general functioning of the department, something specialist staff can help him.”
The Department of Health and Human Services’ separation is working to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce through extensive layoffs, dismantling the agency as a whole, and drastically reducing federal programs and grants.
The move comes after President Donald Trump revealed at this week’s Cabinet meeting that the agency’s director, not Musk, is in charge of staffing decisions.
But Trump warned cabinet secretaries that if they don’t cut staffing enough in their department, Musk would intervene.
“If they can cut, it’s better. If they don’t cut, Elon will do the cut,” Trump said Thursday.
Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authorities, also known as buy-out agencies, allow small or restructured agencies to offer employees a lump sum payment of up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate.
The Trump administration in January similarly offered voluntary takeovers of around 2 million federal workers, but the White House later said it had accepted around 75,000 people.
Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed.
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