The Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs have devastated the workers who lost their jobs and raised fears that the quality of veterans’ health care will decline in the years to come.
Two rounds of layoffs at the VA in February left more than 2,000 workers without jobs – part of a broader mass firing across government agencies led by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Most of those workers were “probationary” employees who had less than a year or two of tenure and lacked stronger job protections.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is considering much deeper cuts at the VA in the weeks to come.
A leaked memo, first reported by Government Executive, calls for the agency to work with DOGE in eliminating some 83,000 additional jobs, part of a massive “reduction in force” that would return the VA to its funding level six years ago. The agency employed around 470,000 workers as of December.
“The unprofessional manner in which these decisions were executed was incredibly disrespectful.”
– Future Zhou, laid-off VA worker
The firings at the VA don’t just impact veterans’ services — they also hit their employment prospects, since veterans make up an outsize share of the VA workforce. Nearly 30% of the agency’s workers served in the military, compared with around 6% in the broader civilian labor force.
Future Zhou, a disabled Army veteran who worked at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Washington state, said she was shocked by her sudden firing as an inventory management specialist at the hospital. Five other probationary employees in her logistics department also lost their jobs, she said, forcing nurses to go fetch their own supplies.
“The unprofessional manner in which these decisions were executed was incredibly disrespectful,” Zhou told reporters Tuesday, speaking on a press call hosted by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
Laid-off probationary employees across the federal government received termination letters attributing their firings to performance, even though many had sterling work records, with supervisor reviews to back them up.
Zhou said she resented the notion that she wasn’t good at her job.
“I was only there for seven months and I was already in charge of three critical functions in the hospital,” she said. “We were severely short-staffed.”
The VA said it has more than 40,000 probationary employees, “the vast majority of whom” were spared from the recent layoffs because they serve in “mission critical” roles.
VA Secretary Doug Collins, a Trump nominee recently confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate, described the firings as “extraordinarily difficult” but necessary.
“These moves will not hurt VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries,” Collins claimed in a statement. “In fact, Veterans are going to notice a change for the better.”
But Murray, a member of the Senate’s Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said there was no way an agency could lay off so many workers without seeing a decline in services. The VA not only provides health care to veterans, it also handles disability claims and helps people transition from the military to civilian life.
“Those staffing cuts are a benefit cut for our veterans,” Murray, whose father served in World War II, said Tuesday. “The stone-cold reality is that massive VA layoffs will hurt and even endanger veterans. That’s not some theory — that’s what we’re already seeing.”
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Murray predicted the cuts would undermine suicide prevention efforts and hamper opioid addiction treatment while leading to longer wait times for veterans seeking disability claims or care.
“It defies all logic and reason to pretend it’s not going to hurt veterans,” Murray said of the Trump administration’s position.
She called the cutbacks “disrespectful, unpatriotic and ungrateful.”
Christian Helfrich, a health services scientist who lost his VA job in Washington state last month, said it could be years before people see the full effects of any research cuts. Helfrich’s work looked at the shortcomings in the VA’s health care services and was funded through a grant. His position requires renewal every three years, which put him on the probationary chopping block.
To give one example, Helfrich said he and colleagues studied how electronic health records could be used to improve treatment for people with obstructive pulmonary disease. The fallout of losing such research won’t show up immediately, he said.
“I think it’s an impact we’ll see five years down the road, ten years down the road, 20 years down the road,” Helfrich said of the cuts.
He added, “If we tear the VA down now, it will take years or decades to build back.”