VA to reduce staff by nearly 30K by end of FY2025

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced on July 7 that it is on pace to reduce total VA staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of fiscal year 2025, eliminating the need for a large-scale reduction-in-force (RIF).

While the VA had been considering a department-wide RIF to reduce staff levels by up to 15%, employee reductions through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition have eliminated the need for that RIF. The numbers break down as follows:

The VA had an estimated 484,000 employees as of January 1, 2025, and by June 1 this year, had reduced its workforce to 467,000 employees— a reduction of nearly 17,000.

Between now and September 30, the department is expecting nearly 12,000 additional VA employees to exit through normal attrition, (voluntary early retirement authority) or the deferred resignation program.

The VA states it has multiple safeguards in place to ensure these staff reductions do not impact Veteran care or benefits. All VA mission-critical positions are exempt from the DRP and VERA, and more than 350,000 positions are exempt from the federal hiring freeze.

“Since March, we’ve been conducting a holistic review of the department centered on reducing bureaucracy and improving services to Veterans,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins. “As a result of our efforts, VA is headed in the right direction — both in terms of staff levels and customer service. A department-wide RIF is off the table, but that doesn’t mean we’re done improving VA. Our review has resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving Veterans that we will continue to pursue.”

The VA says it is currently exploring a number of additional reforms to improve operational efficiency and service to Veterans, including:

-The Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration and National Cemetery Administration all run duplicative and costly administrative functions that can be centralized or restructured so they can each focus on their core missions of health care, benefits and burial services, respectively.

-The VA is reviewing the centralization of support functions to streamline operations and improve support to Veterans, including areas such as police, procurement, construction, IT, budgeting and others.

-Currently, the VA operates 274 separate call centers that are not connected to one another. A centralized call center with modernized systems would lead to quicker and better service for Veterans and could be run with fewer staff members.

-While the VA has a payroll system that processes paychecks for more than 200,000 VA employees, nearly 50 VAMCs still process their own payroll. The VA is already working to consolidate payroll for all employees under the VA Time and Attendance System, which will save time, money and resources.