US State Department firing over 1,300 staffers under Trump admin’s restructuring plan

The US State Department is firing over 1,300 employees on Friday as part of a sweeping reorganisation plan launched by the Trump administration earlier this year. According to a senior State Department official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, termination notices will be sent to 1,107 civil service employees and 246 foreign service officers currently serving in domestic roles.
The affected foreign service officers will be immediately placed on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, said an internal notice. 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 read. “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.”

Move hailed by Trump, Rubio; slammed by diplomats

The staff reduction has been hailed by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Republican allies as overdue and necessary to make the department leaner, nimbler, and efficient, but it has been severely criticised by current and former diplomats who say it will weaken US influence and its ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad.

The Trump administration is reshaping American diplomacy and working aggressively to reduce the size of the federal government by mass dismissals and dismantling whole departments like the US Agency for International Development and the Education Department.

In a recent ruling, 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 a day before that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them. The job cuts are large but considerably less than many had feared initially.

‘Deliberate step to make State Department more efficient, focused’

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 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, adding that some positions were unfilled or were vacant because of early retirement.

‘Americans everywhere will bear consequences’

The American Foreign Service Association had last month urged the State Department to hold off 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.”

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

A letter sent by the department to Congress noted that the reorganisation will affect more than 300 bureaus and offices due to unclear or overlapping work.