The VA Is Cutting 35,000 Health Care Jobs Right Before the Holidays

Almost 30,000 Workers Already Left This Year

The Department of Veterans Affairs is about to cancel tens of thousands of job openings for doctors, nurses, and medical staff. The timing is December 2025, and the positions being eliminated are mostly unfilled.

But for the 9 million veterans who rely on VA health care, those empty slots represented future help that is no longer coming.

Staff at VA hospitals across the country have already been stretched thin after nearly 30,000 employees left through buyouts and attrition earlier this year.

Now the agency wants to shrink even further, and the people still showing up to work say they are running out of room to absorb the losses.

Up to 35,000 Positions Disappear

The VA plans to eliminate as many as 35,000 health care positions this month by canceling open job listings across the Veterans Health Administration.

These are mostly unfilled roles, including doctors, nurses, and support staff.

Agency leaders have instructed managers at VA hospitals and clinics to identify thousands of openings that can be permanently removed from the books.

The goal is to shrink the health care workforce to as few as 372,000 employees, which would be a 10 percent reduction from last year. For veterans already waiting weeks for appointments, fewer staff means longer waits.

The Agency Lost 30,000 Workers Already

Before this latest round of cuts, the VA had already lost nearly 30,000 employees in 2025. That happened through a federal hiring freeze, buyout offers, voluntary early retirement packages, and normal turnover.

The department had about 484,000 employees in January and dropped to around 467,000 by June.

Many who left worked in administrative roles, but the departures also included registered nurses, physicians, psychologists, and medical support staff.

The VA says these reductions will not affect veteran care, but employees on the ground describe a workforce already running on fumes.

Collins Retreated From Mass Layoffs

VA Secretary Douglas Collins originally considered a far more aggressive plan.

Earlier this year, internal memos revealed the department was preparing to fire 83,000 employees, about 15 percent of its entire workforce. That would have returned staffing levels to where they were in 2019.

But bipartisan pushback from Congress forced Collins to back down. Lawmakers from both parties expressed concern that mass layoffs would directly hurt patient care.

Instead of widespread firings, the VA shifted to buyouts and attrition.

Now the agency is going after unfilled positions to continue shrinking without triggering another political fight.

VA Says Jobs Are COVID-Era Leftovers

The VA is framing the cuts as routine housekeeping.

Agency spokesman Pete Kasperowicz said about 26,400 of the eliminated positions are COVID-era roles that have sat vacant for more than a year.

He called them unnecessary and said removing them will have no effect on how the department delivers care to veterans.

But critics point out that many of those positions were created to handle the surge in veterans enrolling after the PACT Act passed in 2022.

That law expanded benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, and enrollment hit record highs. Cutting the jobs meant to serve those new patients raises questions about whether the VA can keep up.

Job Applications Dropped 57 Percent

The VA is not just losing workers. It is struggling to attract new ones.

Job applications to the department fell 57 percent compared to last year, according to the agency’s own workforce report.

The national shortage of health care workers makes recruiting harder, but uncertainty about the VA’s future is also driving people away.

Nurses and doctors looking for stable employment are choosing private hospitals over an agency that has spent the past year announcing layoffs, buyouts, and reorganizations.

The fewer people who apply, the harder it becomes to fill the positions that remain open.

Regional Offices Face Cuts Next Week

The health care workforce is not the only target. Secretary Collins is expected to announce plans next week to shrink the network of 18 regional offices that manage VA hospitals and medical centers.

Staff at these offices help set policies, allocate resources, and oversee hiring.

Collins and other Trump administration officials have criticized the VA’s administrative structure as top-heavy and inefficient. They argue that cutting management will free up money for direct patient care.

But employees at those offices say consolidating or eliminating their roles will create confusion and slow down decisions that affect veterans.

Phoenix VA Loses 358 Open Positions

At the Phoenix VA, managers learned they must eliminate 358 job openings.

The cuts include nurses and doctors the facility was counting on to help clear appointment backlogs. One nurse at the Phoenix VA said leadership made clear that no department would be spared.

The facility was already behind on scheduling, and now the reinforcements they expected are not coming.

Phoenix is one of the largest VA health care systems in the country, serving hundreds of thousands of veterans in Arizona.

Losing these positions means the staff who remain will have to see more patients with fewer resources.

San Diego Cuts 322 Vacancies

The VA San Diego health care system got similar news.

Director Frank Pearson sent staff an email explaining that the facility had expected to fill 734 job vacancies with new nurses, doctors, and other workers. Instead, higher-ups decided to clean up the books.

San Diego must now eliminate 322 vacant positions. In the mental health section alone, about half of 78 open positions will disappear.

Veterans in the San Diego area are already waiting 60 to 90 days to access mental health services. Staff say they were counting on those new hires to provide relief.

Now they know help is not coming.

PACT Act Hiring Is Being Reversed

The positions being cut trace back to a major policy shift under the Biden administration. In 2022, President Biden signed the PACT Act, the largest expansion of VA benefits in decades.

The law extended health care to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations. Enrollment surged, and the VA hired tens of thousands of new employees to handle the workload.

Then-Secretary Denis McDonough encouraged veterans to use VA doctors rather than seek outside referrals.

The Trump administration has taken the opposite approach, pushing more veterans toward private care and trimming the workforce that was built to serve them in-house.

Union Says Staff Are Exhausted

The American Federation of Government Employees represents more than 320,000 VA workers. Union officials say they were not consulted about the latest cuts but have heard plenty of concerns from members.

Sharda Fornnarino, a VA nurse in Colorado and local union leader, said her facility still lacks the staff needed to meet demand.

She urged lawmakers to restore collective bargaining rights so nurses can advocate for safer working conditions.

The House passed a measure last week to overturn an executive order that eliminated union rights at federal agencies, but the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate.

Veterans Will Wait Longer for Care

The math is straightforward. Fewer staff means longer wait times.

VA employees across the country say they are already doing the work of multiple people to compensate for departures. The idea that relief might arrive kept some going through a difficult year.

Now that hope is gone. The VA insists these cuts will not hurt veterans, but the people answering phones, scheduling appointments, and treating patients say otherwise.

For the 9 million veterans enrolled in VA health care, the question is no longer whether the system is strained. The question is how much more strain it can take before something breaks.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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