VA halts mass layoffs, still shedding 30,000 jobs by 2026
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is backing off a plan to conduct mass layoffs by August as part of an agency-wide restructuring. At the same time, the agency will go ahead with plans to reduce its workforce by roughly 30,000 before the end of 2025.
The initial plan was to eliminate 83,000 jobs, about 15% of the VA workforce. Most of those jobs would have been eliminated via involuntary dismissal. However, per the current plan, the agency said the new target will be “achieved through normal attrition, early retirements, deferred resignations and the federal hiring freeze.”
On Monday, the VA confirmed it expects 12,000 workers to leave their posts by the end of September as a result of early retirement or deferred resignation, which it called “voluntary.”
While the VA had around 484,000 employees at the beginning of the year, that number now stands at 467,000, meaning about 17,000 jobs have already been eliminated. According to the announcement, this accounts for layoffs conducted earlier this year to comply with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
The agency touted its improved efficiency in serving veterans, including reducing its backlog on disability claims by 30%, streamlining its core services and bringing 60,000 remote workers “back to the office” in an effort for staff to “work better as a team to serve veterans.”
Despite the shift and cuts, the agency maintains that its core healthcare and benefit services have not been impacted.
“Since March, we’ve been conducting a holistic review of the department centered on reducing bureaucracy and improving services to Veterans,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in an announcement. “As a result of our efforts, VA is headed in the right direction—both in terms of staff levels and customer service.”
Collins added that, while slashing 85,000 jobs is now “off the table,” the agency continues to work on ways to improve internal operations.
“Our review has resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving veterans that we will continue to pursue,” he said.
Centralizing support functions
In offering more details on how it's improving efficiency, the VA said it’s working to connect its 274 nationwide call centers, upgrading systems to improve responsiveness. It also said the efforts of the Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration and National Cemetery Administration are all being consolidated to eliminate issues caused by the sub-agencies acting independently.
Additionally, it's working on a way to eliminate the need for state-based VA groups to process paychecks for employees, bringing that clerical work under the umbrella of the national agency.
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