This story was updated at 2:48 p.m. on May 5 to include a statement from a State Department spokesman
The State Department is finalizing layoffs for hundreds of employees who have been on paid administrative leave for nearly a year and have been kept from returning to their jobs.
The department told nearly 250 Foreign Service employees and about 30 civil service employees on Tuesday that they have been officially separated from their jobs after receiving reduction-in-force notices last summer. Last month, the State Department rolled out a recruitment campaign to join the Foreign Service.
“In April 2025, the secretary determined the department would undertake a reorganization in line with broader efforts to streamline government functions, eliminate redundancy, and enhance accountability, including through a reduction in force. Your reduction in force separation will be effective today, Tuesday, May 5,” the department told employees in a notice obtained by Federal News Network. “Thank you again for your service to the department.”
Three laid-off Foreign Service employees recently told Federal News Network that the finalized layoffs were imminent. The American Foreign Service Association confirmed in a statement Tuesday that the State Department has finalized the layoffs.
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“The department has never adequately explained why it is removing experienced Foreign Service professionals with critical skills while simultaneously hiring new personnel. This is not sound workforce planning. It is a disruption to the career diplomatic corps at a moment when the country can least afford it,” AFSA said.
AFSA President John Dinkleman received a RIF notice last summer after the State Department eliminated its Diplomats in Residence program. He is among the hundreds of former employees who received a separation notice on Tuesday.
“My thoughts are with the scores of individuals who are in much more vulnerable situations, who are just days away from being eligible to retire, and who are being basically chopped off at the knees professionally. They’re having their entire situation upended and threatened. It’s really terrible,” Dinkleman said in an interview.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement that the department’s RIFs “were the most complex and tailored in federal government history,” and were conducted as part of a major reorganization.
“These were thoughtfully designed to facilitate a more efficient, faster, and effective America First diplomacy,” Pigott said.
In July 2025, the State Department sent layoff notices to nearly 1,350 employees — mostly civil service employees permanently based in the United States. The Foreign Service employees who received RIF notices were temporarily serving in domestic posts.
According to impacted employees, the State Department was waiting to see whether Congress would include additional layoff protections in a recently passed spending bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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“It’s all a mystery what State has been doing and why, and they have not communicated with us at all,” one laid-off Foreign Service officer said.
The State Department sought to finalize its Foreign Service RIFs last December, but a federal judge in San Francisco put those plans on hold. Congress gave agencies a three-month reprieve from layoffs, as part of a stopgap funding bill that ended last year’s 43-day government shutdown.
Most agencies rescinded the RIF notices they sent during last year’s shutdown. But a federal district court judge ruled in January that the State Department didn’t have to rescind its RIF notices, after she determined that those layoffs fell outside the layoff protections provided by Congress.
In March, Under Secretary for Management Jason Evans repeatedly told lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee that laid-off employees will not be eligible to compete for vacant positions.
Democrats on the committee urged the State Department to consider rehiring laid-off diplomats or to allow them to compete for vacancies. Lawmakers said these personnel are needed for the department to meet its diplomatic mission amid several international conflicts.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said during the March 18 hearing that these laid-off Foreign Service officers already hold security clearances and have years of on-the-job experience.
“These are people the department invested in language training, graduate degrees, years of field experience, and yet the department is now hiring new Foreign Service officers and contractors to fill vacancies — positions that will require tens of thousands of dollars in training,” Castro said.
Dinkleman said that since the U.S. began military strikes in Iran began in February, the State Department has had “hundreds of individuals who were still on the payroll, with top-secret clearances, sitting in their homes — who had Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and every other language under their belt, with consular training, emergency crisis management training — who could have simply been put on the phones to answer questions, and who would have willingly done so.”
“Out of some sense, I think, of not wanting to appear that they had made a mistake, they essentially made us all pariahs within the organization that we have devoted our lives to,” he said.
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A second Foreign Service officer who received a RIF notice last summer told Federal News Network that the State Department is currently accepting applications to fill his exact role. The department’s notice on USAJobs states that it has “MANY vacancies” it’s looking to fill.
“Yet again, another egregious slap to the face,” the employee said.
Despite the State Department’s recruiting push, the Foreign Service doesn’t plan on hiring above its rate of attrition.
The department’s fiscal 2027 budget justification shows that it plans to keep shrinking its workforce. According to the budget document, the State Department plans to have about 11,000 Foreign Service employees and 6,000 civil service employees next year.
Before the Trump administration, the State Department had more than 14,000 Foreign Service employees and nearly 13,000 civil service employees.
Upcoming changes to federal employee assessments may push out more Foreign Service officers. Evans told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Foreign Service will resume “low-ranking” employees, a practice in which personnel who don’t meet certain performance evaluation criteria are recommended for removal.
The Office of Personnel Management released a proposed rule in February that would limit how many federal employees can receive the highest ranking on their annual reviews.
In light of this proposed rule, Evans said the State Department is preparing to offer fewer top ratings to Foreign Service officers during annual performance evaluations, and that supervisors will face consequences if they give too many high scores to employees.
Dinkleman said that the State Department will likely face recruitment challenges after these widespread layoffs.
“The new people who you can train up, they’re scared. They’re not going to question, they’re not going to do what the Foreign Service is supposed to do, in basically taking any issues and squeezing them from all different sides, to have a full purview, a 360 of what the contemplated actions are going to be,” he said.
As part of its 2027 budget request, the State Department is requesting more than $21 million to cover the costs of 400 employees it hired last year to bring functions from the now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) into the State Department. The department is also asking for more than $9 million to cover more than 30 new positions “to implement administration priorities and the department’s recent reorganization.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29
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