Foreign service officers affected will be placed immediately on administrative leave for 120 days, after which they will formally lose their jobs, according to an internal notice obtained by The Associated Press. For most affected civil servants, the separation period is 60 days, it said.
“In connection with the departmental reorganization … the department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” the notice says. “Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities.”
Rubio said officials took “a very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused.”
He said some of the cuts will be unfilled positions or those that are about to be vacant because an employee took an early retirement.
The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents diplomats, urged the State Department last month to hold off on 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.”
Michael Rigas, the department’s deputy secretary for management and resources, said in a notice Thursday that select staffers would be informed if they were being laid off and called it part of the department’s biggest reorganization in decades.
“Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force. First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States,” he said.
The State Department is planning to eliminate some divisions tasked with oversight of America’s two-decade involvement in Afghanistan, including an office focused on resettling Afghan nationals who worked alongside the U.S. military.
A letter that the department had sent to Congress noted that the reorganization will affect more than 300 bureaus and offices, saying it is eliminating divisions it describes as doing unclear or overlapping work. It says Rubio believes “effective modern diplomacy requires streamlining this bloated bureaucracy.”
That letter was clear that the reorganization also is intended to eliminate programs — particularly those related to refugees and immigration, as well as human rights and democracy promotion — that the Trump administration believes have become ideologically driven in a way that is incompatible with its priorities and policies.
