Lawyers from the Department of Health and Human Services have revealed that the administration had initially planned to terminate 982 employees. However, due to issues such as “data discrepancies and processing errors,” around 1,760 employees received reduction in force (RIF) notices last Friday.

While a detailed breakdown of layoffs across different agencies is still unavailable, it seems that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was the most severely affected.

Both current and former CDC personnel, along with union members representing staff at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters, have been collaborating to collect information from those affected. Their goal is to determine the precise number of employees and positions that have been eliminated.

Based on unofficial figures provided by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which advocates for CDC workers in Atlanta, approximately 600 CDC employees remain unemployed, even after some notices were withdrawn.

According to the unofficial estimates from the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents CDC employees in Atlanta, about 600 CDC employees remained out of work, even after the rescinded notices.   

“These illegal firings of our union members during a federal government shutdown is a callous attack on hard working Americans and puts the livelihoods, health and safety of our members and communities at great risk,” AFGE Local 2883 President Yolanda Jacobs said Tuesday. 

The terminations came after President Trump threatened to axe federal workers in retaliation for the government shutdown, which is going into its third week.  

The layoffs also hit non-scientific workers, including IT support and human resources staff, who were brought back from furlough just to email out layoff notices to employees— themselves included.  

CDC library staff and museum staff, whose current and former employees said are crucial for supporting research and communicating to the public about what the agency does, were fired.