Backlash at HHS delays plan to slash 10,000 jobs, Politico reports

(Reuters) -The plan to cut 10,000 jobs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was abruptly delayed amid growing backlash over its execution by Brad Smith, the Department of Government Efficiency lead at HHS, Politico reported on Monday, citing two officials.

The secretive approach of Smith, who has ties with one HHS agency, was at the center of the controversy. He attempted to exempt this agency from the workforce reduction process, the report added.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to overhaul federal public health agencies, including eliminating 10,000 jobs and consolidating certain functions of the FDA, CDC and other agencies under his authority.

"Each division built a plan to bring their personnel back to 90% of FY 2019 levels; no division was exempted from that process but some parts of HHS had grown more than others over that time period," HHS' director of communications Andrew Nixon said on Monday.

"RIF (reduction in force) notices did not go out on Friday so that all the data could be triple checked over the weekend."

President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who oversees the DOGE cost-cutting initiative, have been gutting agencies as part of an effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy and budget.

Trump ordered all federal agencies earlier this month to draw up plans for a second wave of mass layoffs, and the White House began reviewing the plans last week alongside Musk's DOGE.

(Reporting by Puyaan Singh and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)