RFK cuts 10,000 health department jobs in agency restructuring

Kennedy argues HHS is "inefficient as a whole" and claims cuts will remove "bureaucratic sprawl"

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr will slash 10,000 jobs from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a part of a sweeping restructuring.

The move - along with voluntary resignations - will shrink the department's workforce of 80,000 to about 60,000, the White House estimates.

HHS also is consolidating its 28 agency divisions into 15 new sections, including a new Administration for a Healthy America, to help carry out Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again agenda.

"We aren't just reducing bureaucratic sprawl," Kennedy said in a statement on Thursday. "We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic."

In a statement, HHS said the cuts would save taxpayers an estimated $1.8b (£1.38b) per year.

The restructuring comes as President Donald Trump's administration makes broad changes across the government to cut costs, aided by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk and Doge have argued in court documents that Musk's role is advisory only.

HHS - a department with a $1.8 trillion budget that oversees 13 agencies - plans to lay off 3,500 full-time employees at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and 2,400 workers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the White House.

The administration is also cutting 1,200 employees from the National Institutes of Health, it said. The remaining employees will be cut from other agencies; officials said FDA inspectors and CDC infectious diseases employees would not be affected.

Kennedy's new Administration for a Healthy America division will focus on maternal and child health, mental health, environmental health and substance abuse.

In a video announcing the changes, Kennedy argued that HHS had been "inefficient as a whole" in recent years.

"The rate of chronic disease and cancer increased dramatically as our department has grown," he said. "What we've been doing hasn't worked. That's why we're making this dramatic overhaul."

In the video, Kennedy noted that the entire federal workforce has been downsized.

"So this will be a painful period for HHS," he said.