Rex Tillerson Plans Major Staff Cuts in State Department Restructuring

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Heritage Foundation

The State Department is planning to reduce staffing by thousands as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson moves forward with efforts to streamline the agency that conservative critics say has outgrown its core functions.
As many as 2,300 foreign and civil service positions—about 9 percent of the Americans in State’s workforce worldwide—will be cut over the next two years, department sources told Bloomberg. Most of the reduction will come from attrition: 1,700 employees won’t be replaced after they retire. The remaining 600 will be asked to leave State early through buyouts, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity.

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Shrinking the government workforce: Can Trump succeed where others have failed?

 

I remember back in the Bush administration days when the talk was all about reducing the federal workforce through attrition only. Anything beyond leaving a few vacant positions unfilled was considered too ambitious.
So when I see what the Trump administration has planned in terms of eliminating thousands of government positions, it's really striking. The Washington Post today mentions the discussion of eliminating 2,300 State Department workers. Apparently this is to come not just from the larger pool of 75,000 overall (including foreign workers who serve at overseas facilities), but from among just the 24,000 American civil and foreign service positions. That's actually almost a ten percent cut, and it involves a (probably wise) consolidation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).