US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has acknowledged that about one-fifth of the 10,000 jobs eliminated from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were mistakenly cut and "must be reinstated."
Mass layoffs from HHS started this week as Donald Trump’s administration sought to reduce the size of the federal government workforce. Union representatives were informed that approximately 10,000 people would lose their jobs, with further cuts potentially reducing the department’s 82,000-person workforce by nearly a quarter.
However, Kennedy stated that a significant portion of the layoffs by Elon Musk’s unofficial “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) are mistaken.
"In the course of that, there were a number of instances where studies that should have not have been cut were cut, and we've reinstated them. Personnel that should not have been cut were cut -- we're reinstating them, and that was always the plan," he told reporters.
"The part of that, DOGE — we talked about this from the beginning — is we're going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstalled, because we'll make mistakes."
"And one of the things that President Trump has said is that if we make mistakes, we're going to admit it, and we're going to remedy it, and that's one of the mistakes," Kennedy said.
Despite calling some program cuts a "mistake," Kennedy has maintained that HHS's massive restructuring would not impact "essential services" or "frontline" jobs.
It’s unclear which staff will be reinstated or what functions the health department will retain. The job cuts have impacted many areas, resulting in the loss of experts in smoking, infertility, and mine safety.
The cuts to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) included the division dedicated to developing tobacco policy, which was funded by the tobacco industry.
Robert Califf, former FDA commissioner, described the layoffs as “a dark day for public health."
