VA plans to lay off as many as 83,000 employees this year
The Veterans Affairs Department is planning to lay off tens of thousands of employees throughout its organization later this year, according to an internal memorandum distributed to top staff on Tuesday.
VA will soon kick off a departmentwide review of its mission, organization and structure, according to the memo, which was obtained by Government Executive. It will work in partnership with the Department of Government Efficiency to create a workforce optimization plan, VA Chief of Staff Christopher Syrek said in the document. Syrek said VA will “move aggressively” to implement its plans that reduce management and bureaucracy, cut the department’s footprint and “increase workforce efficiency.”
The forthcoming reductions in force, Syrek said, will “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.”
More than one-in-four VA employees are veterans.
The memo follows two executive orders President Trump issued calling for agencies to reshape their workforces and develop RIF and reorganization plans. VA has largely exempted its workforce from the governmentwide hiring freeze and fired a relatively small proportion of its probationary employees, leaving some question as to whether the department would have to lay off employees at all.
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2025/03/va-plans-lay-many-83000-employees-year/403477/
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