Veterans Affairs Cutting Nearly 30,000 Jobs

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will make fewer employee cuts this fiscal year than initially targeted by nearly two-thirds, reducing staff by approximately 30,000 people rather than 80,000. The agency employed approximately 480,000 people at the beginning of 2025. It expects to end the fiscal year in September with nearly 450,000 staff members. Under President Donald Trump‘s program to downsize the federal government, the agency had planned to reduce its workforce to just under 400,000 employees.

The Proposal

That proposal garnered widespread condemnation from both military veteran groups and Democrats, who called it a national crisis. In a recent statement, the agency said it was on pace to reduce its staff “through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition.” The scale of the original planned layoffs was far greater than proposed cuts at other government agencies and potentially posed a political risk for Trump, who portrays himself as a champion of the U.S. military and its members.

Veterans Affairs Employees

Between January and June, the agency reduced its workforce by almost 17,000 employees. It expects “nearly 12,000 additional VA employees to exit” by September 30, the VA stated. “A department-wide RIF is off the table, but that doesn’t mean we’re done improving VA,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a release, referring to a reduction in force. Just under 9 million veterans were enrolled in the VA Health Care System in March, according to the VA website.

DOGE vs The VA

President Trump extended a government-wide hiring freeze until October 15. The freeze, which he imposed by executive order in January, was set to expire during the summer. DOGE also stated in a post on X that the department was not renewing a contract costing $380,000 per month for “minor website modifications,” and the work is now being handled by a software engineer already employed in the department. “Good work by@DeptVetAffairs,” the post said. “VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications. That contract has not been renewed and the same work is now being executed by one internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week.” The VA said it “has multiple safeguards in place to ensure these staff reductions do not impact Veteran care or benefits.” It has claimed throughout the DOGE-led cuts that “mission-critical” positions are exempt from the hiring freeze and layoffs.

Veterans Mental Health

Some responders on the Veterans Crisis Line, a hotline for veterans at risk of mental health crisis, were temporarily laid off – they were rehired following an uproar from Democratic lawmakers and labor unions. Still, widespread fires and rehires across the department sent morale among workers plummeting and sparked fears of severe impacts on veterans’ hospitals, which were already severely understaffed, as well as crucial VA-funded research programs.

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