Morale craters at State Department as mass layoffs loom

The Trump administration’s plan for mass layoffs at the State Department has left much of the workforce exasperated and embittered, tanking morale as extra demands were made to assist U.S. citizens seeking to flee the Middle East amid Israel’s war with Iran, employees say.

At the direction of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the State Department informed Congress in May that it planned to reduce its U.S. workforce by more than 15% – almost 2,000 people – as part of a sweeping reorganization intended to streamline what he has called a “bloated bureaucracy that stifles innovation and misallocates scarce resources.” Separately, he has accused certain bureaus within the department of pursuing a “radical political ideology.”

Rubio had set a Tuesday timeline for the dismissals, but execution of the plan is contingent on a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, which is evaluating President Donald Trump’s sweeping attempt to fire federal workers across numerous government agencies. It’s unclear when the court could act.

Amid the wait, State Department staff were asked to work additional hours to help at-risk Americans as fighting between Israel and Iran stirred fears of a full-scale regional crisis. A task force, established on June 12 to manage evacuations, faced an even greater sense of urgency after Trump directed U.S. military intervention in the conflict.

Though the around-the-clock operation is scheduled to wind down soon due to the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, many State Department workers said they found it insulting that leadership was urging employees to volunteer for extra duty as the administration planned to fire people.

One State Department employee, speaking like some others on the condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisal, said the push exposed how the department’s leadership “either doesn’t appreciate or just doesn’t care” about its workforce.

“Doing extra shifts while this anxiety is hanging over us is just devastating to morale,” this person said.

Tom Yazdgerdi, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats, said the expected cuts “show serious disregard for members of the Foreign Service managing multiple conflicts and assisting American citizens in the Middle East and other crisis zones.”

“Despite the stress of not knowing when they or their colleagues might face layoff notices,” he said, “our members tell us they want nothing more than to remain on the front lines and continue to serve the American people.”

The State Department declined to directly address this and other complaints raised by staff in interviews with The Washington Post. A senior State Department official, a political appointee who worked closely on the reorganization and spoke on the condition of anonymity under guidelines set by the department, acknowledged the impact the looming layoffs have had on the workforce but emphasized the “thoughtful” and “deliberative process” underpinning the plan, including “dozens of conversations with Congress, employees and stakeholders.”

Also off-putting to some employees was an “action request” cable that arrived this week instructing staff to gather and share images of July Fourth celebrations at embassies and consulates worldwide. The cable asked staff to “collect a high-quality set of visuals” including “candid shots of attendees enjoying the event” and “smiling children, families, and diplomats.”

“To me the irony of asking for happy photos of smiling children, happy families, and guests celebrating while threatening to fire thousands is peak Trumpism,” said one worker who received the cable.

A few days earlier, the State Department published significant revisions to a set of rules governing layoffs, making it easier to fire large swaths of employees. The changes also stripped away job protections that had long been afforded to Foreign Service officers.

Under the previous system, Foreign Service officers who lost their positions through a reduction in force had to be offered a position somewhere else in what’s known internally as their “competitive area,” employees who spoke with The Washington Post said. Now those areas have been sharply narrowed, meaning no replacement job offers will be forthcoming for affected staff.

One State official predicted such changes will diminish the department’s talent pool. It appears the Trump administration is “looking to cut a percent of overall employees instead of keeping high performers, people with critical language skills, experience abroad, etcetera,” this person said.

The senior political appointee said that the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual had to be revised to ensure the planned layoffs complied with legal requirements. The process, this person said, focused on specific roles that needed to be eliminated rather than the individuals currently serving in them.

“No one was targeted,” the administration official said, adding that individuals with specialized skills will be retained.

Rubio has defended his downsizing effort, saying the agency has “long struggled to perform basic diplomatic functions, even as both its size and cost to the American taxpayer has ballooned over the past fifteen years.”

“The problem is not a lack of money, or even dedicated talent, but rather a system where everything takes too much time, costs too much money, involves too many individuals, and all too often ends up failing the American people,” Rubio wrote in an essay on Substack this spring.

What remains to be seen is how soon the administration’s downsizing will realize the dramatic taxpayer savings Trump officials suggested.

Rubio, who is also the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, oversaw the dismantling of that agency earlier this year. A draft memo that was prepared for Rubio and signed in early June by nine State Department officials estimates that USAID’s shuttering will end up costing more than $6 billion in the near term as the federal government fends off lawsuits from contractors and former employees who say they were fired illegally.

The senior political appointee strongly disputed that figure, saying a later draft of the memo suggested costs of roughly $2 billion and calling that estimate a “worst-case scenario.”