At least two-thirds of NIOSH’s staff are expected to be laid off – including director Dr. John Howard, a source told ISHN on April 1, 2025 — as part of a restructuring ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The restructuring was announced March 27, 2025 according to a CBS News report. The CBS News headline: “RFK Jr.'s layoffs expected to gut worker safety agency NIOSH.”

Approximately 873 staff are expected to be cut from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), multiple leaders within the agency were told in recent days, according to CBS News.

Officials said that new health hazard evaluation probes by NIOSH had been paused for several weeks under travel and communication restrictions imposed soon after the Trump administration took over, CBS news reported.

NIOSH departments where "all employees" are expected to be impacted, according to the announcement, are the office of NIOSH's director; the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, which vets and approves N95 respirators among other personal protective equipment; as well as several branches dealing with miner safety and health.

Closing the lab that tests and approves all occupational respiratory equipment brings into question whether or not respirators will be independently certified in the future.

The probable effective date for the cuts is June 30, 2025.

The restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will combine several agencies, including NIOSH, in a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) within HHS.

The restructuring will reduce the number of divisions within HHS from 28 to 15 and result in a reduction of full-time federal workers from 82,000 to 62,000. According to HHS, the changes will save $1.8 billion per year.

“Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants,” Secretary Kennedy said in an HHS news statement.

“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,” HHS Kennedy said. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

“Our goal is to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy concluded.