
OAN Staff Abril Elfi
8:27 AM – Friday, July 11, 2025
A report has stated that the State Department will be laying off over 1,300 employees amid a reorganization plan.
According to a senior department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, the department is sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the United States. Individual notices will be emailed to affected employees.
An internal document acquired by The Associated Press stated that the impacted foreign service officers will be placed on administrative leave for 120 days before being formally terminated.
The most common separation duration for federal servants is 60 days, according to the report.
“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.”
According to a report by Fox News Digital, Michael Rigas, deputy secretary of management and resources, issued an internal message Thursday evening stating that domestic employees affected by the reduction in force (RIF) would be contacted “over the coming days”
“The departments, bureaus, offices and domestic operations have grown considerably over the last 25 years, and the resulting proliferation of bureaus and offices with unclear, overlapping or duplicative mandates have hobbled the department’s ability to rapidly respond to emerging threats and crises or to effectively advance America’s affirmative interests in the world,” a senior State Department official said.
Additionally, the official stated that there are “more than 700 domestic offices for 18,000 people.”
“A lot of this, as we said, covers redundant offices and takes some of these cross-cutting functions and moves them to the regional bureaus and to our embassies overseas, to the people who are closest to where diplomacy is happening, to empower them with the resources and authorities they need to be able to carry out the President’s foreign policy,” he said.
Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokesperson, warned on Thursday that the agency will act quickly after the Supreme Court delayed a lower court’s order barring the government from executing widespread force reductions across federal agencies.
According to a top official, there are no present plans to close embassies and missions overseas. They stated that the State Department will seek to protect the dignity of the affected workers.
“We’re going to work to preserve the dignity of federal workers,” the official said. “We want to be sensitive to that process and make sure people have the resources they need … and make sure everyone is treated with dignity.”
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