Public health careers after the federal cuts: where the work moved

Federal public health took deep cuts in 2025. The Department of Health and Human Services set out to shrink from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost more than a quarter of its staff, according to Federal News Network, and hundreds of CDC grants to state and local health departments were cancelled within days of each other.

This guide is for the people caught up in that: federal staff who were laid off or took deferred resignation, state and county employees whose grant-funded jobs ended, and graduates trying to start a public health career now. It tracks where the work went, what is hiring, and the questions that separate a stable offer from one that ends with the next grant cycle. Each figure is dated; all were checked in September 2026.

What happened to federal public health jobs?

HHS announced its restructuring in late March 2025. Its fact sheet set out a reduction from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees, the consolidation of 28 divisions into 15 and of 10 regional offices into 5, and a CDC workforce cut of about 2,400. It also announced plans for a new Administration for a Healthy America, combining the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, HRSA, SAMHSA, ATSDR and NIOSH.

Federal News Network has reported that about 10,000 HHS employees were laid off and another 10,000 took deferred resignation or early retirement. Some of that was later reversed. CDC leaders told staff in summer 2025 that about a third of the 2,400 CDC employees laid off had been reinstated, and in January 2026 HHS rescinded every layoff notice sent to NIOSH, the CDC institute for workplace safety, where about 1,000 employees — roughly 90 percent of its staff — had received notices the previous April.

The net loss stuck all the same. Federal News Network, citing Office of Personnel Management workforce data, reported that CDC’s headcount fell by roughly 2,500 in fiscal 2025 and by nearly 700 more in the first part of fiscal 2026.

Is federal public health hiring coming back?

Partly, and unevenly. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a House Appropriations subcommittee on 17 April 2026 that the department had grown back to 72,000 employees and planned to hire 12,000 more, according to Federal News Network. The same outlet reported that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was looking to hire about 1,200 people this year.

CDC is the exception. Federal News Network reported in June 2026 that HHS had authorized CDC to make about 900 new hires, but that the agency had made only 29 new hires so far that fiscal year and was filling most gaps with 120-day temporary details. Employees told the outlet that one reason was that, for open competitive service jobs, the agency would have to give priority consideration to people it laid off in 2025. In July, CDC’s new chief operating officer told staff that a strategic planning process would decide where to hire, and that there were no plans for another reduction in force.

That priority rule is real, and worth understanding if you were laid off. Under OPM rules, career and career-conditional competitive service employees separated by reduction in force can register on their agency’s Reemployment Priority List for the local commuting area where they were separated, and the agency uses that list to give them reemployment priority.

State and local health departments: hit too, and still the main employers

Most public health jobs were never federal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts state government as the employer of 33 percent of epidemiologists and local government of another 22 percent. Local government employs 18 percent of community health workers, and government agencies, not counting public schools and hospitals, employ 24 percent of health education specialists.

Those departments took their own hit. KFF Health News reported that HHS cancelled about 700 CDC grants worth roughly $11 billion in late March 2025 — money that had supported vaccination, disease surveillance and community health worker programs. States that sued won injunctions, and the outlet found that by August 2025 nearly 80 percent of the cancelled grants had been restored in Democratic-led states, compared with fewer than 5 percent in Republican-led states. It reported, for example, that Columbus, Ohio, eliminated 11 public health positions investigating infectious disease outbreaks after losing about $3 million.

Budgets were under strain before that. The National Association of County and City Health Officials’ 2024 Forces of Change survey, as reported by CIDRAP, found that 19 percent of local health departments reported job losses in 2023, 17 percent reported budget cuts in fiscal 2024, and 23 percent expected cuts in fiscal 2025.

One federal program still underpins many of these jobs. CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Grant funds 107 health departments, has awarded them more than $4.6 billion, and can be spent on workforce among other things. Its grant period runs from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2027 — a date worth knowing if the job you are offered is paid from it.

Where the demand is, role by role

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2025–35 projections still show growth in the core public health occupations. These are national figures across all employers, not offers.

• Epidemiologists: median pay $87,220 in May 2025, 12,800 jobs, employment projected to grow 19 percent from 2025 to 2035, about 800 openings a year.
• Health education specialists: median pay $64,070, 70,400 jobs, projected growth of 6 percent, about 6,900 openings a year.
• Community health workers: median pay $51,850, 64,700 jobs, projected growth of 13 percent, about 7,000 openings a year. The typical entry requirement is a high school diploma plus on-the-job training, though some states require certification.
• Registered nurses, including public health nurses: median pay $97,550, about 180,800 openings a year. BLS reports that government agencies other than public hospitals and schools employ about 5 percent of RNs and pay them a median of $110,780.

Read those against the size of each field. Epidemiology is small — 12,800 jobs nationally and about 800 openings a year — so experienced federal staff entering the market are competing for the same roughly 800 openings a year as new graduates. Community health work is larger, lower-paid and open to people without a degree, which makes it one of the more realistic entry points in 2026.

Where the work moved: five places to look now

• State and local health departments that kept their funding or pay from their own budgets. Read the department’s published budget and ask the funding questions above.
• Federal components that are hiring. Federal News Network reported CMS aiming for about 1,200 hires this year and HHS overall planning 12,000. Search USAJOBS for public health analyst, health scientist and program roles outside CDC as well as inside it.
• Hospitals and health systems. Infection prevention, population health, quality and community health programs use epidemiology, data and health education skills. BLS counts hospitals as the employer of about 10 percent of epidemiologists and 16 percent of health education specialists.
• Public hospitals and county health systems, which combine clinical care with population health duties and often run their own outreach programs.
• Community organizations that run health worker and outreach programs under state or local government contracts. Ask the same funding questions; a contract can end as abruptly as a grant.

If you left CDC or another HHS agency: a step-by-step plan

• Confirm how you separated. A reduction in force, deferred resignation and early retirement carry different rights, and the Reemployment Priority List applies to reduction in force (and compensable injury), not to resignation.
• If you were separated by RIF from a career or career-conditional competitive service job, register on your agency’s Reemployment Priority List for your commuting area, and check whether you are eligible for ICTAP selection priority at other agencies.
• If you are out of work, file for unemployment under the UCFE program for former federal employees.
• Rewrite your federal résumé for state and local applications, which often use their own application forms, minimum qualifications and, in some states, exams.
• Decide how you feel about Schedule Policy/Career before you apply back into federal service, and ask about the designation at the offer stage.
• Keep your licenses and certifications current, so a gap in employment does not turn into a gap in qualifications.
• Use the relationships you built with state programs. Many federal public health roles worked hand in hand with state health departments, and those contacts can be the most direct route into a state post.

Starting out in public health in 2026

The state and local public health workforce was already young and new before the cuts. The 2024 Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey, run by the de Beaumont Foundation and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and completed by 56,595 employees between September 2024 and January 2025, found that 25 percent were 35 or under, 54 percent had been at their current agency for five years or less, and 41 percent had worked in public health for five years or less. Seventy-five percent said they intended to stay in the next year, and 71 percent reported at least one symptom of burnout.

That is a workforce with room for newcomers and a real risk of turnover at the same time. In a June 2026 article, the de Beaumont Foundation urged health departments to offer structured mentoring, clear career ladders and low- or no-cost training such as the BEAM certificate, which are fair things to ask about when you compare offers.

Practical entry points without a graduate degree include community health worker posts, disease intervention and outreach roles, and health education positions. With a nursing license, public health nursing is open to you; with a graduate degree in epidemiology or biostatistics, state epidemiology programs are the largest single employer.

Common mistakes in a disrupted market

• Treating a grant-funded post as permanent without asking when the grant ends.
• Assuming federal hiring has resumed everywhere because HHS says it is hiring. CDC and CMS have been on very different tracks.
• Applying only to CDC and ignoring state and local epidemiology programs, which together employ more than half of all epidemiologists.
• Accepting a federal offer without asking whether the position is Schedule Policy/Career.
• Letting a license or certification lapse during a gap between jobs.

Is CDC hiring in 2026?

Slowly. Federal News Network reported that HHS authorized about 900 CDC hires but that CDC had made only 29 new hires in the fiscal year to June 2026, filling most gaps with temporary details. Check USAJOBS directly rather than relying on announcements.

Are state health departments hiring?

Many are, but funding differs sharply by state, partly because of which states won back their cancelled CDC grants. Ask whether a post is paid from the general fund or a federal grant, and when any grant ends.

What is the Reemployment Priority List?

A list each agency keeps, by local commuting area, to give reemployment priority to career and career-conditional competitive service employees it separated by reduction in force or because of a compensable injury.

Which public health job has the strongest outlook?

Of the occupations above, BLS projects the fastest growth for epidemiologists, at 19 percent over 2025–35, followed by community health workers at 13 percent. Epidemiology is also the smallest field, so competition for each opening is stiff.

Last reviewed Sep 13, 2026. First published Oct 14, 2026. Federal hiring rules change — confirm anything you act on against the agency's own announcement or OPM guidance.