The Small Business Administration (SBA) plans to cut more than 40 percent of its workforce amid an agency-wide restructuring, it announced Friday.
The agency will cut about 2,700 positions out of its workforce of nearly 6,500 employees, reverting to staffing levels from the first Trump administration, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said.
“The SBA was created to be a launchpad for America’s small businesses by offering access to capital, which in turn drives job creation, innovation, and a thriving Main Street,” Loeffler said in a statement.
“But in the last four years, the agency has veered off track — doubling in size and turning into a sprawling leviathan plagued by mission creep, financial mismanagement, and waste,” she continued.
The cuts will come through voluntary resignations, the elimination of pandemic-era roles and other term appointments and a “limited number” of reductions in force, according to a press release.
Certain accountability roles will be exempt from the reductions, including the Office of Advocacy and the Office of the Inspector General, SBA noted. It also emphasized that core services to the public will not be impacted.
“Just like the small business owners we support, we must do more with less,” Loeffler added.
The recently confirmed SBA administrator criticized the agency’s expansion under former President Biden, blaming a “suite of new progressive programs.” She argued the previous administration’s efforts led to the “deterioration of SBA’s services and financial performance.”
The cuts to the agency come amid a government-wide push to slash the federal workforce led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Several hundred probationary employees at SBA were fired last month in a chaotic series of events, in which they prematurely received termination notices that were withdrawn before receiving termination notices once again just days later, according to Politico.
