Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently announced that their total projected amount of layoffs to the staff is 30,000 employees by the end of fiscal year 2025, down from the 80,000 it initially announced at the beginning of the year.1
In a prepared statement, VA noted that staff levels as of June 1, 2025, stood around 467,000 employees, which was a 17,000 reduction from 484,000 at the beginning of the year.
“Employee reductions through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition have eliminated the need for” the larger reduction in force (RIF), the statement read. Between now and September 30, 2025, the department expects nearly 12,000 additional VA employees to exit through normal attrition, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, or the Deferred Resignation Program.
“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 noted in the statement. “As a result of our efforts, VA is headed in the right direction—both in terms of staff levels and customer service. A department-wide RIF is off the table, but that doesn’t mean we’re done improving VA. Our review has resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving veterans that we will continue to pursue.”
VA officials are considering other proposed changes to the department, including centralizing call centers and departments such as the Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration, and National Cemetery Administration, which they claim will “streamline operations and improve support to veterans, including areas such as police, procurement, construction, IT, budgeting and others.”
On the day of the VA’s statement, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who was an early outspoken critic of the planned staffing reductions, released a statement, slamming the originally planned reductions as “disastrous.”
“This announcement makes clear VA is bleeding employees across the board at an unsustainable rate because of the toxic work environment created by this Administration and DOGE’s slash and trash policies,” according to the statement from Mr Blumenthal’s office. “This is not ‘natural’ attrition, it is not strategic, and it will inevitably impact veterans’ care and benefits....Make no mistake, this is still a reduction in force—except VA has been able to do it without accountability and transparency to veterans and Congress. It is shameful, and it will continue to ruin veterans’ trust in VA for years to come.”
In a typical year, according to Mr Blumenthal, VA’s workforce has a net gain of 10,000 employees, and, his statement noted, “this announcement signals a net loss of 30,000 employees. Therefore, VA still stands to lose tens of thousands more employees than ever before—without the accountability and transparency required during an official reduction in force.”2
The VA is one of the largest employers of federal workers.
References
- Department of Veterans Affairs. VA to reduce staff by nearly 30K by end of FY2025 [press release]. July 7, 2025. Accessed July 7, 2025. https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-to-reduce-staff-by-nearly-30k-by-end-of-fy2025/
- Blumenthal R. Blumenthal statement on the Trump VA’s decision to abandon disastrous goal to fire more than 83,000 VA employees [press release]. July 7, 2025. Accessed July 7, 2025. www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-statement-on-the-trump-vas-decision-to-abandon-disastrous-goal-to-fire-more-than-83000-va-employees