Firing notices coming soon, US State Department tells employees

UPDATED: Jul 11, 2025 04:24 IST

The State Department will begin sending layoff notices “in coming days,” according to Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas, marking the start of one of the most extensive overhauls of the US diplomatic corps in decades.

“Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force,” Rigas said in a statement on Thursday. “Once notifications have taken place, the Department will enter the final stage of its reorganization and focus its attention on delivering results-driven diplomacy.”

The announcement came after the Supreme Court ruling that cleared the path for President Donald Trump’s administration to proceed with deep job cuts across federal agencies, despite ongoing legal challenges. The move aligns with Trump’s February executive order instructing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reshape the foreign service in line with the administration’s “America First” foreign policy agenda.

Though no official figures have been released yet, congressional documents submitted in May proposed laying off nearly 1,900 employees from the Department’s estimated 18,000-person domestic workforce. Another 1,575 staff were reported to have taken deferred resignations. Officials said the reductions would target bureaus deemed “redundant and overlapping.”

“The focus is on the org chart first,” a senior State Department official told reporters. “Functions of a more efficient, capable, fast and effective State Department.”

More than 300 offices and bureaus — nearly half of the Department’s internal structure — are expected to be streamlined, merged, or eliminated entirely. One of the most high-profile changes will see the dissolution of the office of the under secretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights. In its place, a newly created Senate-confirmed under secretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs will oversee the restructured Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour.

That new office, according to internal documents, aims to “ground the Department’s values-based diplomacy in traditional Western conceptions of core freedoms.” It will be led by a deputy assistant secretary for Democracy and Western Values.

Critics say the scale of the cuts could significantly weaken American diplomacy at a time of growing global instability. Last week, over 130 retired diplomats and former senior officials issued a public letter warning that the reorganisation could cripple US influence abroad.

“The Department is too large to operate, too bureaucratic to actually function and deliver projects or action,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said during a press briefing. “It has to change.”

The administration also appears to be making a sharp ideological pivot. Internal documents reveal that most diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within the department have been rescinded, with officials emphasising a return to “merit-based” personnel decisions.

Rigas characterised the effort as a modernisation drive that aligns the Department’s mission with 21st-century realities. “This is the Department’s biggest reorganisation in decades,” he said.

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