The State Department formally advised staffers on Thursday that it would be sending layoff notices to some of them soon, coming as part of dramatic changes to the agency that the Trump administration announced earlier this year. The workforce cuts and reorganisation of the country’s diplomatic corps are part of a wider administration effort to reduce the size of the federal government that has been largely carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formerly led by Elon Musk.

A recent ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the layoffs to start, while lawsuits challenging the legality of the cuts continue to play out. Michael Rigas, the department’s deputy secretary for management and resources, said in a statement that select staffers would be informed if they were being laid off and called it part of the department’s biggest reorganisation in decades.

Rigas’s statement said the department is aiming to “focus resources on policy priorities and eliminate redundant functions, empowering our people while increasing accountability.” Critics say the scale of cuts floated will lessen US influence globally and make it hard for many departments to carry out their missions.