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The State Department is gearing up for widespread layoffs across its
workforce based in the United States, despite a federal court’s order
barring these cuts from taking place.

A Foreign Service officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to speak to the press, told Federal News Network
that RIF notices are ready to go out on Friday.

“Reportedly, there are [RIF] letters prepared, and there has been a task
order to give them out on Friday,” the Foreign Service officer said. “The department leadership can reverse an inherently unfair process — they can
tell people, ‘OK, we will do this globally and to provide those details in
an orderly way.’”

The State Department told lawmakers last month that it plans to lay off
nearly 1,900 employees through a reduction-in-force. According to the department’s latest reorganization plans, nearly 1,600 employees agreed to leave the agency through voluntary incentives, including both rounds of
the “deferred resignation” program. Between the RIFs and departures under
the deferred resignation programs, the department is looking at an 18% cut
to its workforce.

The upcoming RIFs focus on the domestic civil service workforce, but
hundreds of Foreign Service employees will also receive RIF notices.

The State Department told employees, in a frequently asked questions
document on Thursday, that the RIF to domestic offices and functions “will impact both civil and foreign service personnel.”

The department is asking domestic-based civil service employees to upload
their resumes and to “confirm and update their employment information.”

“Resumes are useful in properly allocating employee skills during and
after the reorganization,” the department wrote.

Tom Yazdgerdi, president of the American Foreign Service Association, said
in a statement Wednesday that AFSA has heard the State Department reduction-in-force (RIF) notices will likely go out as soon as the end of
this week or early next week.

On June 13, Senior District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco said that
her preliminary injunction, blocking agencies from carrying out reductions
in force and agency reorganizations under an executive order, will remain
in place.

Illston specified that the State Department’s recently introduced reorganization plan cannot go forward under the preliminary injunction, including RIF notices that were scheduled to go out June 14.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for its federal workforce cuts to proceed. The Supreme Court added the case to its emergency docket, but has yet to issue an opinion.

“Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, the department is legally barred
from taking any action outlined in its reorganization plans,” Yazdgerdi
said.

State Department officials told lawmakers last month they plan to
implement a reorganization of domestic operations by July 1.

Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott declined to answer questions
about the timing of RIF notices at a briefing Thursday, but told
reporters, “we have no plans to violate a court order.”

“This reorganization is about making sure we’re able to meet the
challenges of the 21st century — being able to move at the speed of
relevance, as the secretary says. It’s about empowering people, instead of bureaucracy,” Pigott said at Thursday’s press briefing.

An update to the Foreign Affairs Manual earlier this week outlined nearly
800 competitive areas for Foreign Service employees in the event of a RIF. Redefining competitive areas so narrowly can impact an employee’s rights
in the event of a RIF, especially if an entire office is eliminated.

“They’re putting the big dome on domestic positions and then by creating
the competitive areas, they’re putting tiny little domes on each of these offices,” the Foreign Service officer said.

The department said the Foreign Affairs Manual update will allow it “to narrowly tailor any potential reductions, which is consistent with the Secretary’s commitment to ensure that cuts are thoughtful and do not
compromise core diplomatic functions.”

AFSA wrote in its press release that the Secretary of State holds the
legal authority to implement RIFs, but that recent updates to the Foreign Affairs Manual bypass “long-standing procedures” and would penalize
Foreign Service officers based solely on their current domestic
assignments.

According to the Foreign Service officer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio
has told department officials he does “not want to touch the overseas
workforce right now.” But the department has placed a “dome” over the
State Department’s domestic workforce, preventing Foreign Service
employees currently serving at domestic posts from rotating out to
overseas posts or other domestic assignments.

Verbal and email instructions sent to impacted Foreign Service employees
on June 12 froze all assignment panels for an undetermined amount of time, while Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas assesses the reorganization plan.

The Foreign Service officer compared the dome to “musical chairs,” and
would mean RIFs for Foreign Service officers based on where they’re
currently working, rather than consider years of experience or language
skills.

“By putting that dome over the domestic workforce, that allows them to effectively reduce this workforce domestically. This doesn’t work, because
we are a global force. There’s no way to put this dome over the Foreign
Service structure, particularly since June is when people begin to rotate
in and out of offices,” they said.

Foreign Service officers typically rotate in and out of offices this
month, and many Foreign Service members have already been offered
“handshake” offers to different posts.

“They have already been promised jobs. They are all ready to leave, and in
some cases, they have already left. But this is now a chaotic situation of employees stuck in closing offices and receiving offices unable to receive
the talented employees they want to perform the high-priority areas of
this administration,” the Foreign Service officer said.

The State Department currently doesn’t recognize AFSA as a union. A
federal judge in Washington, D.C. granted a preliminary injunction in a
lawsuit led by AFSA last month, barring the department from enforcing an executive order eliminating collective bargaining rights for nearly a
million federal employees.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C., however, granted a stay in the case on
June 20. In a separate ruling, a federal judge in San Francisco issued
her own preliminary injunction in a case led by the American Federation of Government Employees and five other unions.

AFGE Local 1534, which represents civil service State Department
employees, told members that it will be “taking appropriate action to
challenge the RIFs as long as we have status to do so.”

AFGE Local 1534 told members on Wednesday that there are “credible rumors”
the State Department may begin to issue RIF notices on Friday, whether or
not the Supreme Court issues an opinion on the preliminary injunction
barring RIFs.

“Besides ensuring that you have all of your records/personnel files saved, there is not much to do on the individual level until RIF notices are
actually sent out,” the union wrote.

AFSA warns these imminent workforce cuts come at a time when the Foreign Service is “under-resourced and stretched thin.” The union estimates a
quarter of the Foreign Service workforce has been reduced since January
through early retirements, agency closures, and strategic buyouts.

“The Secretary of State and this administration are seemingly choosing a
path that causes maximum harm to a large portion of the Foreign Service
and their families,” Yazdgerdi said. “RIFs should be a last resort.
Disrupting the Foreign Service like this puts national interests at risk —
and Americans everywhere will bear the consequences.”

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/06/state-department-gears- up-for-imminent-layoffs-despite-federal-judges-order/

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