US Agriculture Department tries to rehire fired workers tied to bird flu response

Trump administration officials said this week that the USDA might change its approach to the bird flu outbreak, potentially eliminating the need to slaughter entire flocks when the disease is found.

The Agriculture Department is scrambling to rehire several workers who were involved in the U.S. government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years.

The workers were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on the recommendations of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is working to carry out President Donald Trump’s promise to streamline and reshape the federal government.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon said the administration should be more careful in how it carries out the cuts. “While President Trump is fulfilling his promise to shed light on waste, fraud, and abuse in government, DOGE needs to measure twice and cut once. Downsizing decisions must be narrowly tailored to preserve critical missions,” said Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska.

The bird flu outbreak has prompted the slaughter of roughly 160 million birds since it began in 2022 to help control the virus. Most of the birds killed were egg-laying chickens, driving egg prices to a record high of USD 4.95 per dozen on average. The federal government has spent nearly USD 2 billion on the response, including nearly USD 1.2 billion in payments to farmers to compensate for their lost birds.

A USDA spokesperson said the department “continues to prioritize the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI),” and several key jobs—such as veterinarians, animal health technicians, and other emergency response personnel—were protected from the cuts. However, some employees of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) were eliminated.

“Although several APHIS positions supporting HPAI were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters,” the department spokesperson said.

Politico and NBC News reported that the jobs eliminated were part of an office that helps oversee the national network of labs the USDA relies on to confirm cases of bird flu and other animal diseases. It wasn’t immediately clear how many workers the department might be trying to rehire or whether any of them worked at the main USDA lab in Ames, Iowa.

Trump administration officials said this week that the USDA might change its approach to the bird flu outbreak, potentially eliminating the need to slaughter entire flocks when the disease is found. However, they have yet to offer many details on their plan.