How Many Employees Does the CDC Have? 2025 Cuts and Reinstatements

As of September 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employed roughly 12,800 federal staff, according to Office of Personnel Management data.¹ That number has since fallen sharply. Under the Trump administration, the CDC has lost more than 3,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, through layoffs, buyouts, early retirements, and firings of probationary staff.² The agency’s FY 2026 budget proposal projects staffing dropping further, to 7,249 full-time equivalents.³

How the Headcount Grew Before 2025

The 12,800 figure was the peak of steady expansion, with a noticeable acceleration during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. OPM data shows the agency growing from 9,738 employees in 2010 to 10,987 in 2020, then jumping to 11,899 in 2022 and 12,820 in 2024. That represents a 31.6% increase over 2010 and accounts for about 0.6% of the entire federal civilian workforce.¹

Who These Employees Are

Headline CDC headcounts generally count only federal employees. The full workforce is larger and more varied, mixing civil servants, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers, contractors, and fellows. A 2012 analysis found 11,223 federal employees at the agency (10,316 civil servants and 907 Commissioned Corps officers) plus 7,123 contractors, bringing the total to roughly 18,300 people working at or for the CDC.⁴

In that same snapshot, public health managers made up about 26% of federal staff, with administrative and clerical personnel and laboratory workers at 10% each. Epidemiologists were roughly 9% and public health physicians about 4%. Fifty-nine percent held graduate degrees, and 60% were 45 or older.⁴

Roughly half of employees work at the Atlanta headquarters. The rest are spread across domestic sites in Fort Collins, Colorado; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C., among other locations.⁵ CDC staff also work in more than 60 countries,⁶ and the Center for Global Health alone employs more than 1,700 in-country staff worldwide.⁷

The 2025 Cuts

The reductions came in overlapping waves. In February 2025, roughly 1,300 probationary employees, about 10% of the agency at that time, were notified of layoffs. Around 400 more accepted “fork in the road” departure offers the same week, and an unspecified number of contractors were also let go. The cuts eliminated the entire first-year class of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the CDC’s field-epidemiology training program.⁸

In April 2025, as part of a broader Department of Health and Human Services downsizing that cut 10,000 HHS employees (with another 10,000 leaving through voluntary separation), the CDC issued 2,400 reduction-in-force notices.² By June 2025, the agency had shed nearly 3,000 people since Inauguration Day, or about 24% of its staff. That figure breaks down into more than 500 retirements (mostly incentivized), roughly 180 buyouts, over 400 deferred-resignation acceptances, and the probationary employees who were fired, briefly reinstated by court order, and then fired again after the Supreme Court struck down that order.⁹

Reinstatements

Some cuts were walked back. By summer 2025, the CDC had rescinded about 800 of the 2,400 RIF notices and recalled roughly 300 employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and in June 2025 sent reinstatement notices to another 467 employees across various centers.⁹ The agency eventually rescinded all NIOSH layoff notices.² Even so, the net trajectory kept moving down. OPM data showed a net reduction of about 2,500 CDC employees in fiscal year 2025, followed by a further net loss of nearly 700 in the early months of fiscal year 2026.¹⁰

Where the Number Is Headed

The administration’s FY 2026 budget request projects CDC full-time equivalents falling from 9,754 to 7,249, a decline of 2,506 positions. It also seeks $4.24 billion for the agency, down from $5.48 billion enacted in FY 2025.³ Much of the projected FTE drop reflects a plan to consolidate HHS from 28 divisions into 15 and to transfer several CDC program areas, including HIV/AIDS prevention, environmental health, injury prevention, and occupational safety, to a proposed Administration for a Healthy America. The CDC’s remaining mission would be narrowed to infectious disease surveillance, outbreak investigation, and emergency preparedness.¹¹ Separately, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, with roughly 1,000 emergency response workers, is being moved under the CDC.¹²

Rebuilding on the hiring side has been slow. The agency has made only 29 new hires so far in fiscal year 2026, despite being authorized since late 2025 to make roughly 900. Acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya has said the agency is not pursuing additional RIFs, has requested a revised hiring plan focused on rebuilding chronic disease capacity, and has expanded the annual ad hoc telework allotment from 80 to 240 hours to help attract and retain staff.² Bhattacharya has characterized the pace of hiring as HHS “moving at the speed of bureaucracy.”¹³

1
USAFacts. What Does the U.S. Government Do – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
2
Federal News Network. CDC Plans Hiring Push to Fill Gaps From Last Year’s Widespread Layoffs
3
CDC. FY 2026 CDC Congressional Justification
4
National Library of Medicine. CDC Workforce Analysis
5
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. What Is the CDC and What Does It Do
6
CDC. Global Health Careers
7
CDC Foundation. New Report Highlights CDC’s Impact Through Global Partnerships
8
NPR. CDC Layoffs
9
Government Executive. CDC Has Shed One-Quarter of Staff, Even as It Recalls Some Laid-Off Workers
10
Federal News Network. A Game of Musical Chairs: CDC Employees Say Temporary Reassignments Take Priority Over Hiring After Major Staffing Cuts
11
HHS. HHS Restructuring
12
STAT News. HHS Emergency Response Unit Given 48 Hours to Plan Move to CDC Control
13
KFF Health News. CDC Jay Bhattacharya Acting Director Staff Cuts Morale