‘It’s hard to be merry’: VA workers brace for more bad news as job cuts continue days before Christmas

(CNN) — Some staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs are finding little to be merry about after the agency said it would eliminate tens of thousands of open, unfilled positions across the country as it looks to streamline its staffing.

Three sources familiar with the decisions told CNN that leadership at the VA medical facilities they work for first informed them of plans to eliminate the jobs just before Thanksgiving. The positions being eliminated include primary care doctors and nurses, mental health care providers and social workers, among many others.

On Monday, multiple facilities held town halls discussing further caps on future jobs, one of the sources said, adding that based on what this person heard, the impression was that “more job cuts are coming.”

The person, who works in management at a VA hospital in the Eastern US, told CNN that when the directives to eliminate several hundred open positions at their facilities were issued, they were given only a few days to figure out which positions to cut.

The open positions at risk include those at VA hospitals, clinics and so-called Veterans Integrated Service Network offices, or VISNs, which are regional management stations that help deliver services at local VA health care facilities, two sources said.

Documents from the VA seen by CNN show that the agency is proposing cutting the number of VISNs from 18 to five, though it was unclear when this would be enacted.

The VA said the cuts are an effort to remove postings for outdated positions that have long been vacant.

“VA is simply eliminating about 25,000 open and unfilled positions- mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary,” VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz told CNN.

“All of these positions are unfilled and most have not been filled for more than a year, underscoring how they are no longer needed,” Kasperowicz said, adding that the elimination of those positions would have “zero impact on Veteran care.”

The VA did not answer CNN’s question of whether it is eliminating VISN offices.

Sources who spoke to CNN said the cuts have raised alarm as employees are already facing low morale and staffing shortages in many places.

“The impact on morale is huge. We’ve seen this institution, that so many take pride in working for, being pulled apart,” said one source, a clinician working at a VA facility in the Western US. “It’s hard to watch.” The person said that over half of the 1,000 or so open job positions at their facility are being eliminated.

“What freaked us out is that we didn’t expect them to cut mental health providers,” another source, a VA management official in mental health, said.

“We were already short on mental health providers,” the person said, warning that cuts to hiring could impact individual veterans seeking mental health care, such as by leading to longer wait times; not having enough providers or only having less-experienced providers available to see patients, since many experienced mental health care providers have left the VA in recent months.

The sources say that so far, the plans do not call for people currently occupying VA jobs to be laid off. “They aren’t firing anyone, but all open positions are gone and they may not let us re-fill when people leave,” said one source.

Another source said that offers had been made to job candidates for some of the open roles at the facility where they work that are now being eliminated. “It’s hard to be merry,” the person said. “It’s just the constant of it. You can’t catch a break.”

Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, the VA made plans to lay off roughly 80,000 employees from a total staff of about 470,000 at the agency, which would have amounted to about 15% of its workforce.

But in early-July the agency pulled backed plans for mass layoffs, saying instead that it planned to reduce the total number of staffers by about 30,000 “through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition.”

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