Mass Firings Hit Cdc

Dozens of CDC employees were notified late Friday night that they were being terminated, according to several former and current CDC officials and employees.

The agency’s Washington office was terminated, as well as employees in the Global Health Center and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, according to a current CDC official and a former administration official with direct knowledge of the reduction-in-force notices.

“I don't have a count, but it's a lot, and the notices are still coming,” said one of the CDC officials, who, like the others who spoke with POLITICO, was granted anonymity to discuss internal personnel decisions. “Entire offices are being eliminated, including people in senior leadership roles.”

At least some officers in the Epidemic Intelligence Service were dismissed, according to the CDC official and a separate former agency employee with knowledge of the terminations. The EIS officers are nicknamed “disease detectives” because they are frequently charged with investigating outbreaks and are part of a storied CDC training program.

Some fellows in the Laboratory Leadership Service, who work on improving lab safety, also got notices, according to the former employee and the current official.

Leaders in the agency’s Public Health Infrastructure Center also received notices, as well as the employees in the Office of Science, the CDC official said. A second former administration official confirmed that some leadership in the PHIC office had been terminated.

Since before the government shutdown began, the Office of Management and Budget has previewed plans to use the government funding stalemate to terminate federal workers.

In a recent memo to agencies, OMB instructed Trump administration officials to prepare to implement reduction-in-force plans during the shutdown, targeting employees who work in programs not legally required to continue or clash with President Donald Trump’s policy priorities.

The Department of Health and Human Services began laying off between 1,100 and 1,200 employees on Friday, according to a court document the Trump administration filed late in the day.

Employees across “multiple divisions” at HHS have received reduction-in-force notices, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon wrote in an email Friday. He declined to comment on which divisions have been affected.

Announcements of departmental layoffs across the federal government came Friday afternoon after White House budget chief Russ Vought posted on social media platform X, “The RIFs have begun.” Along with HHS, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the largest number of terminated employees, according to the court document.