U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday he planned to lay off 10,000 people at the Department of Health and Human Services. “We are going to do more with less,” he said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In Maryland, it could mean a lot less.

Of the 82,000 people who work at the federal health department known as HHS, about 32,000, or about 40%, of them are based in the state.

Adding in the impact of other layoffs and resignations at the department earlier this year, HHS’s workforce is expected to be about 25% smaller after today’s announced cuts take effect.

The massive jobs reduction comes at a time when Maryland is already reeling from other announced cuts to the federal workforce. Thanks to cuts to biomedical research and global humanitarian assistance, Johns Hopkins University announced it would lay off more than 2,000, the largest such reduction in its history.

The HHS cuts announced Thursday are expected to be significant in Maryland. But it was immediately unclear from department documents exactly how many working in the state would lose their jobs.

Thousands of professionals in the state work for the department. An analysis by The Baltimore Banner of federal data found their jobs are in health sciences, management and program analysis, information technology, natural resources management and biological sciences. Other categories include medical officers, nurses and public health program specialists.

In total, 1 in 10 Maryland workers is employed by the federal government, plus many more who work as federal contractors. Federal money pledged to the state accounted for 22% of Maryland’s gross domestic product last year.

At least a dozen major HHS agencies are based in Maryland, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in Woodlawn; the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Rockville; the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda; and the Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring.

Many of these agencies are slated for the largest cuts. HHS also outlined plans to merge some of its agencies with others as part of a major reorganization aimed at improving efficiency and eliminating redundancy, according to the department.

Some 28 divisions will be consolidated down to 15. In addition, the number of regional offices will be halved. Human resources, information technology, procurement, external affairs, and policy operations will be centralized.

Specifically, half of the announced cuts will be inside three Maryland-based agencies, according to the department:

• FDA will lose 3,500 people. Department officials said that those who review drugs, medical devices and food, however, will not be affected by the cuts.
• NIH will layoff 1,200 employees by centralizing on procurement, human resources and communications now spread across 27 institutes and centers.
• CMS will cut 300 workers, by reducing duplication. Department officials insisted those cuts will not impact Medicare and Medicaid services.

Other big cuts are coming to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 2,400 job cuts, citing a need, in part, to “return to its core mission of preparing for and responding to preparing and responding to epidemic and outbreaks.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen said “gutting agencies” that protect safety of food and medicine, fund medical research and oversee health coverage for millions is “idiocy, not efficiency.”

In a statement, the Maryland Democrat called the cuts “yet another example of the Trump administration’s great betrayal, instead of working to lower costs for working people, they’re stripping away vital services to create a government that only serves the richest of the rich.”

A Maryland resident who has worked for HHS for about a decade said in an interview Thursday that employees in his division learned of the impending staff reduction through the news. They don’t know yet how the cuts will happen or who they will impact, he said.

“People are bummed out and scared,” said the worker, who asked to remain unnamed for fear of losing his job.

It’s been demoralizing to hear Trump’s supporters belittle federal workers as lazy and a drain on the public purse, he said, “which is the exact opposite of why we’re here, which is to make a big impact on people’s lives.”

Another HHS employee who lives in Baltimore and has worked for the department for more than a decade said Thursday’s announcement was only the most recent development in months of turmoil that have taken a toll on his mental health.

Amid rounds of layoffs, buyouts and funding cuts, he has been prescribed anti-anxiety and sleep medication, said the worker, who asked to not be identified for fear of retribution.

Kennedy, the HHS secretary, said the layoffs and restructuring would save $1.8 billion a year, and refocus the department on improving health. He described the U.S. today as a nation lagging behind most of its peers.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said in a statement. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

He acknowledged the cuts would cause short term pain, and that pain may not be felt anywhere more deeply than in Maryland.

Many of the people who are now expected to lose their jobs are highly educated and well-paid with good employer benefits, said Jeremy Schwartz, chair and professor of economics at Loyola’s Sellinger School of Business.

He said the job market awaiting these Marylanders will be tough. With earlier federal layoffs and a growing economic pessimism voiced by businesses, nonprofits and universities, experts say the number of job opportunities in the state is expected to be more limited.

“Maryland has been somewhat fortunate in the past when there has been economic weakness, we have had a stable employer in the federal government,” Schwartz said. “In this case, it’s turned against us. The federal government is cutting back and potentially causing a lot of economic upheaval in Maryland.”

Many laid-off workers could also leave the state, or pare back on spending, which would spill over and hurt other sectors of the economy, including the service industry. And if their expertise is again needed in the future, those kinds of experienced government workers may not be readily available for the government to rehire easily.

Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday from the State House that the cuts are “direct strikes against the people” of Maryland.

He said the government was working to help direct the federal workers to the private sector and state jobs.

“The attacks from the Trump Administration are not glancing blows,” he said.

“But the thing that I know is — and what I learned in the military is — that you don’t just sit there and take it, either. You fight back, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing.”

Banner reporters Greg Morton, Pamela Wood, Alissa Zhu and Sapna Bansil contributed to this report.