State Department cuts broader than anticipated, include diplomatic security

The State Department is sending formal layoff notices to 1,107 civil service employees and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments, according to internal department communication reviewed by ABC News.

All notifications for civilian service employees and foreign service officers are expected to go out by the end of the day on Friday, according to the communication.

Impacted civil service employees will generally be placed on 60 days of administrative leave before termination, while foreign service officers will be placed on administrative leave for 120 days and then separated from the department.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio officially notified the State Department Friday evening that the reorganization plan unveiled in April will begin to go into effect on Monday, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.

"These changes will take effect on July 14, 2025. On that date, some Department employees will begin to work in new bureaus of offices," Rubio said. "It will take some time to complete all the internal administrative steps to complete this transition."

Rubio goes on to say that employees who have received new assignments within the department will begin reporting to their new supervisors on Monday.

The memo goes on to provide transitional guidance in some detail and advises that the department will share additional guidance "in the coming weeks as needed."

Officials say more areas of the department were impacted than originally anticipated. ABC News was told that the workforce reduction includes multiple employees within the population, refugees and migration wings of the State Department and within the diplomatic security bureau.

There were also many cuts from the areas of the department that were anticipated, including its energy resources and conflict and stabilization operations wings, the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and the Office of Global Women's Issues. Other impacted areas include Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, officials said.

In all, 3,000 employees are expected to depart as part of the reduction in force, according to the communication, but that number also includes voluntary departures.

Department leadership previously emphasized that they wanted to handle the layoffs with care, individually notifying each impacted employee; however, many are learning of the change in their employment status by seeing a downloadable Official Personnel Folder that was added to an online human resources portal in the overnight hours.

Employees have been informed they will lose access to the building, their email and some applications by the end of the day. Boxes for personal effects are being distributed at multiple points across the State Department's campus. The department has also set up "Transition Day Out Processing" stations throughout the department.

Impacted employees are also being instructed to send their teams a "brief update" on their projects, leave any hard files in their work area, and to set an out-of-office message.

While these layoffs are focused on the domestic work force, they are based on personnel assignments on May 29 of this year. As such, a limited number of the impacted employees have been transferred abroad between then and now. They are being told to follow checkout procedures at their respective posts.

The State Department released a letter to all employees Thursday evening informing them that the department was officially moving to implement a "targeted reduction in domestic workforce."

"Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force. First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States," the letter, signed by Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas, reads.

Senior State Department officials described the changes as "the most complicated reorganization in government history," emphasizing that the cuts were largely made to eliminate Cold War-era redundancies as well as eliminating functions that were "no longer aligned with the president's foreign policy priorities."

"At the end of the day, we have to do what's right for the mission," one senior official said.

"There's a tremendous amount of sort of unnecessary bureaucracy," the second official asserted.

Employees in multiple areas across the State Department received notifications that they were being laid off in error, according to officials and emails obtained by ABC News.

The officials who were erroneously told they were being RIFed have received emails similar to the one below informing them of the mistake.

The State Department previously reported to Congress that it would aim to reduce its domestic workforce by around 15% as part of the reorganization. However, the senior officials specified that more than half of that goal would be met through "voluntary reductions" -- people who elected to take the deferred resignation plan offered through the "Fork in the Road" emails earlier this year.

The officials also said the department did not have current plans to reduce its force overseas.

"The secretary wants to take this one step at a time," one official said.

The officials also defended the department's decision to cut some highly trained foreign service officers rather than reassign them.