Department of Veterans Affairs Fires Over 1,400 Employees, Including Staffers Working On Suicide Prevention Hotlines

The Department of Veterans Affairs fired over 1,400 workers as part of sweeping layoffs in the federal workforce. Two weeks ago, the VA cut 1,000 non-mission-critical probationary employees who had all served less than two years, the department reported in a statement.

The firings are part of an effort by President Donald Trump and his senior advisor, tech billionaire Elon Musk, to cut down the size of the federal workforce. 

“There are currently more than 43,000 probationary employees across the department, the vast majority of whom are exempt from today’s personnel actions because they serve in mission-critical positions – primarily those supporting benefits and services for VA beneficiaries – or are covered under a collective bargaining agreement,” the VA statement noted. 

The VA said in a report the layoffs would save the agency more than $98 million per year, with resources redirected back toward health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) said in an article published on her official website that the layoffs have affected VA researchers working on mental health, cancer treatments, alcohol and opioid addiction, prosthetics and burn pit exposure. Murray said she heard from VA researchers in her state “who are right now being told to immediately stop their research and pack their bags – not because their work isn’t desperately needed, but because Trump and Elon have decided to fire these researchers on a whim.”

An August report from the VA’s inspector general notes that VA hospitals have struggled with major staffing shortages for five years now. Of 139 veterans’ health facilities surveyed last year, only two were free of “severe occupational staffing shortages,” according to the report.

Democratic lawmakers said at least two workers out of around a dozen fired from the Veterans Crisis Line, a suicide prevention hotline for veterans, were reinstated after the lawmakers intervened. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) told reporters on Wednesday that several crisis line employees who were told they were being let go were only reinstated after her office became involved. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), the Senate’s VA Committee ranking member, and 35 other Senate Democrats are calling on the VA to re-hire  1,000 recently terminated probationary employees.

Musk’s DOGE has been criticized for hiring teenagers to review sensitive taxpayer data.