Trump administration to cut over 70,000 employees from Veterans Affairs department

WASHINGTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Trump administration is planning to cut over 70,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), CNN reported Wednesday.

In an internal memo dated Tuesday, the VA Chief of Staff Christopher Syrek said that the department, in partnership with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, will move "aggressively" to restructure the VA across the entire department and "resize" the workforce, said the report.

The department aims to return its workforce to 2019 levels of just under 400,000 employees, which means more than 70,000 employees could be terminated.

Since the DOGE led by billionaire Elon Musk began its work at the end of January, more than 30,000 federal employees have been laid off nationwide, according to media reports. The White House previously stated that approximately 75,000 federal employees have accepted a "buyout" plan, which offers them eight months of salary for "deferred resignation."

That means that over 100,000 federal employee positions have been slashed, accounting for about 4.5 percent of the 2.3 million federal workforce, moving closer to the White House's target of reducing the workforce by 5-10 percent.