Department of Veterans Affairs plans to fire 80,000 workers, internal memo says

PHOTO CAPTION: A sign marks the headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 20, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Mike Stone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut over 80,000 workers from the agency that helps administer benefits for America's military veterans, according to an internal memo sent to staff and seen by Reuters.

The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, sent a memo to senior officials at the agency on Tuesday, telling them the goal was to return the agency to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That would mean cutting about 82,000 staff.

The memo directed agency staff to work with tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to make the cuts.

Musk and his team have been tasked by U.S. President Donald Trump to slash the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy. To date about 25,000 workers across the U.S. government have been fired and another 75,000 have taken a buyout, out of the 2.3 million federal civilian workforce.

Veterans groups have been speaking out about cuts to the agency after several thousand workers were recently let go. About a quarter of the VA workforce are military veterans.

 (Reporting by Tim Reid, editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)