Hundreds of Health and Human Services employees have been reinstated after mass layoffs at the department earlier this year, according to agency head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The HHS has reinstated 722 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 220 employees at the National Institutes of Health, Kennedy said during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee meeting on Tuesday.
Additionally, the secretary said he returned more than 300 people to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, including for a program that provides care for first responders and survivors of the 9/11 attacks.
Ostensibly about the HHS budget for 2026, the hearing covered a range of topics, from cuts to NIH research grants to the firing of 17 members on a CDC advisory panel on vaccines.
Kennedy’s comments came months after the HHS began a sweeping reorganization of the department, laying off thousands of workers in what HHS staffers say was a chaotic manner plagued by mistakes and poor communication.
“In some cases there have been gaps in our ability to perform our duties,” Kennedy told lawmakers. “They were doing important work that was critical.”
Several lawsuits have been filed over the Trump administration’s restructuring, claiming the layoffs were conducted illegally and hindered the department’s ability to manage crucial health programs.
Kennedy maintained that terminated staffers were mainly involved in administrative work. He claimed the cuts were aimed to address redundancies in the department, like cutting down on external affairs personnel or consolidating offices that handled similar health issues.
“The people who were let go were people who were not involved in primary care or in delivery of care,” Kennedy said. “They were redundant administrative offices that have been added to over the past eight years.”
Yet the layoffs, and the associated cuts to funding along with them, have had broad impact. At the NIH, important biomedical research and clinical trials have been disrupted. At the Food and Drug Administration, there are signs the layoffs have hampered the agency’s work on some drug reviews, despite officials’ claims to the contrary. And the CDC, meanwhile, denied a request from the city of Milwaukee for assistance on its lead crisis, reportedly due to staffing constraints.
Job cuts at most federal agencies are on hold due to a court order this spring. Affected employees are currently on administrative leave, and the department will make decisions on next steps if the injunction is lifted, Kennedy said.
