A quarter of the CDC is gone

after the last Following the round of mass layoffs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the weekend, the union representing the agency’s employees estimates that about 3,000 people this year — about a quarter of the agency’s workforce — have left the agency.

That number includes workers affected by layoffs earlier this year, as well as those who accepted the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” purchasing program.

The most recent cuts came amid the ongoing government shutdown. On October 10, more than 1,300 CDC employees received layoff notices. However, shortly thereafter, about 700 of those people were informed by email that they had been wrongfully laid off and were not actually subject to the reduction in force. An estimated 600 people are still laid off.

According to the union, another 1,300 CDC employees are on administrative leave and receiving pay but not working.

The Trump administration has not shared official figures for the beneficiaries of the reductions. The estimate was compiled by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2883, which represents CDC workers.

The current round of reductions affects the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the National Center for Health Statistics, the CDC library, the agency’s human resources department, campus security staff, as well as the CDC’s office in Washington, D.C., which acts as a liaison to Congress and provides public health information to policymakers.

“All HHS employees who received staff reduction notices were designated as non-essential by their respective divisions,” Andrew Nixon, communications director for the Department of Health and Human Services, told WIRED by email.

Those reinstated include staff who publish the agency’s flagship publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, as well as leaders from the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, according to AFGE. Members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the CDC’s “disease detectives” unit, also returned.