The Department of Health and Human Services rejected a CBS report that alleged the bureaucracy recently slashed its workforce at a Centers for Disease and Control research agency.
On Friday, the outlet reported that the government carried out mass layoffs at the CDC’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
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The HHS responded to the story on Saturday, saying CBS “got it wrong.” There were no NIOSH employees terminated, it said.
“A required notice was sent to NIOSH employees, following the agreed-upon standard process with the union,” the HHS said in a statement to X. “Firefighter health and safety programs remain a top priority for HHS….As the agency continues to streamline operations, the essential services provided by NIOSH will remain fully intact and uninterrupted.”
.@CBSNews got it wrong. No CDC employee was terminated on Friday. A required notice was sent to NIOSH employees, following the agreed-upon standard process with the union. Firefighter health and safety programs remain a top priority for HHS, @SecKennedy and @POTUS. As the agency… https://t.co/4AZEIZv4vy
— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) May 3, 2025
The HHS was “gutting programs ranging from approvals of new safety equipment to firefighter health,” the outlet claimed, writing that “nearly all of the remaining staff” at NIOSH were terminated.
HHS EMPLOYEES OFFERED UP TO $25,000 TO LEAVE JOBS
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has embarked on a mission to cut about a quarter of the agency’s workforce, or roughly 10,000 employees. In late March, thousands of those employees were offered the option to voluntarily resign in exchange for payments of up to $25,000. Many of the positions are administrative roles or positions that the secretary has argued are unnecessary or redundant, constituting “extraordinary waste in my department.”
“The expenditures, the budget of HHS during the Biden administration went up by 38%, the employees went up by 17%, and healthcare went down,” he said during a March 24 Cabinet meeting. “We have 40 comms departments. We have 40 procurement departments. We have 40 IT departments … none of them talking to each other.”