The U.S. State Department on Thursday informed employees that widespread layoffs would begin in the near future.
“Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force,” Deputy Secretary for Management Michael Rigas wrote in an email to staff. “First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States.”
Rigas did not specify exactly how many employees will receive the notices or when they will go out, though employees familiar with the plans expect that to occur as soon as Friday. State has said it will eliminate a total of 3,400 positions at State. After accounting for voluntary, incentivized resignations, nearly 2,000 employees are expected to be laid off. […]
State, like most major agencies, was blocked from carrying out its layoff plan by a U.S. district court in California, but the Supreme Court reversed that injunction earlier this week. Last month, State rewrote its own rules for issuing RIFs. The changes allowed State to lay off employees due to their specific post, region or bureau and created nearly 800 new “competitive areas” made up of domestic organizational units, making it easier for the department to pick and choose which components to eliminate.
State noted in the update it also maintained the right to lump together employees for layoffs based on skillsets or other groupings. The department gave itself more leeway to provide less than 120 days notice, the standard period for foreign service officers. (Government Executive)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also confirmed the reduction in force plan.
"We’ve been ready to implement it pending a court decision, which now has been reached," he told reporters in Malaysia. "There’s some timing associated with how you do that, how you actually implement it, but our intent is to move forward with the plans that we’ve notified Congress of weeks ago and that we took months to design."
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce emphasized the reduction in workforce was about reining in a bloated agency.
“When something is too large to operate, too bureaucratic to actually function and to deliver projects or action, it has to change,” Bruce said. “And it’s not the fault of the people who were misled, effectively, by certain administrations that grew this department into being irrelevant.”