Emails received by Reuters indicate that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed employees on Monday that they may apply for early retirement within 10 days and should provide details on their successes over the preceding week.
Republican President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Elon Musk, who runs the Department of Government Efficiency, are leading a historic federal bureaucracy reduction, including job cutbacks, as Reuters reported.
The HHS informed employees via email that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management authorized early retirement under the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, affecting agencies undergoing significant restructuring, reshaping, downsizing, function transfers, or reorganization.
According to OMP's website, eligible personnel must be 50 years old with 20 years of federal service or any age with 25 years, among other qualifications. The email indicated the promotion ends March 14 at 5 pm EST.
The management sent a second set of emails last week requesting employees to list five weekly successes in bullet points.
HHS employees, including the FDA and CDC, were previously told there was "no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond."
FBI, State Department, and other U.S. agencies advised staff not to comply with DOGE's request.
HHS instructed staff to respond to DOGE's email by midnight without providing sensitive information, such as their medicine and device names, in a Monday email seen by Reuters.
Employees were previously warned by HHS that their responses to the Department of Defense's request could "be read by malign foreign actors."
Both versions of the department's email were sent out on Monday, with the second version removing the reference to the previous version.
In an email that reporters saw the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which is the union that represents workers at the Department of Health and Human Services, informed its members that they are required to cooperate with the agency's decision to proceed with the "ill-advised exercise."
In an email sent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), employees were instructed to follow the guidelines provided by their supervisors for how to answer and respond in a manner that would not identify grants, grantees, contracts, or contractors, nor information that might distinguish the precise nature of scientific experiments, research, or evaluations.
"I feel I will spend the whole day writing these five bullets in a way that does not contain sensitive information while also providing information that my job is important. I don't know if this can be called efficiency," said an FDA source who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Nobody needs to answer if they're on leave, can't make it to the office because of work, or have signed a deferred resignation agreement, says the email.
