This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States will be issuing permanent layoff notices to at least 600 employees. This round of layoffs stems from a recent court ruling, where although the court protected some department employees from being laid off, many others will still face termination.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not provide details on the layoffs on Wednesday, August 20th, only citing a statement from March of this year that the restructuring and layoffs are aimed at improving the response capabilities and operational efficiency of health organizations.
The Department of Health and Human Services initiated large-scale layoffs starting from April 1st of this year, anticipating cutting 10,000 employees along with 10,000 early retirements and voluntary resignations. On that day, the department issued layoff notices to thousands of employees within the CDC and other federal health organizations.
Since then, many employees have been on administrative furlough (being paid but not required to work). Meanwhile, related litigations have been ongoing.
It wasn’t until a preliminary ruling by a federal judge in mid-August that certain departments of the CDC were granted “layoff protection”, including teams responsible for areas such as smoking, reproductive health, environmental health, workplace safety, birth defects, and sexually transmitted diseases.
Other departments will continue with the layoffs, including the Freedom of Information Office. According to employees, the layoffs will take effect starting from Monday, August 18th.
The affected programs encompass work involving preventing rape, child abuse, and teenage dating violence. Among the laid-off employees are those who have assisted in tracking child violence incidents in other countries.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) stated on Wednesday that they are aware of at least 600 CDC employees being laid off, with layoff notices to be issued by the CDC this week, and many employees have not received them yet. There are 2,000 CDC employees who are members of AFGE.
The union stated: “Due to the Department of Health and Human Services severely lacking transparency, the union has not received any formal notification regarding the list of employees being laid off.”
(This article referenced reports from the Associated Press and Reuters)