Department will begin issuing layoff notices to employees via email in the coming days

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Photo / Getty Images

The State Department will begin issuing layoff notices to employees via email “in the coming days” as a part of the Trump Administration’s plans to downsize government, Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources, told staff in a memo obtained by the Washington Post.

The memo did not detail the number of employees who would be let go but said “every effort has been made to support our colleagues who are departing”.

Uncertainty over the status of the plan has negatively impacted morale at the department, with some of the workforce exasperated at a time when many were made to assist United States citizens seeking to flee the Middle East amid Israel’s war with Iran.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed Congress in May that the department planned to reduce its US workforce by more than 15% - almost 2000 people - as part of a sweeping reorganisation.

It is intended to streamline what he has called a “bloated bureaucracy that stifles innovation and misallocates scarce resources”.

Separately, he has accused certain bureaus within the department of pursuing a “radical political ideology”.

Last week, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump Administration to launch plans for mass firings and reorganisations at 19 federal agencies and departments while litigation continues.

The justices lifted a lower-court order that temporarily blocked plans to lay off thousands of federal workers, including at the State Department, because the Administration did not first consult Congress.

While the layoffs are deeply unpopular among career officials, some expressed mild relief that the court’s decision ended the cloud of uncertainty hanging over the department.

“The only thing worse than these layoffs was the uncertainty about these layoffs,” one State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post.