Jan 14 (Reuters) – The Trump Administration is reversing its staffing cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Bloomberg News reported, reinstating employees at the agency that provides research and services for coal miners, firefighters and others.
The status of NIOSH workers had been in flux since mass job cuts last year, with some workers brought out of administrative leave earlier this month only to be notified days later that they were permanently terminated.
Bloomberg, citing Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon, reported late on Tuesday that hundreds of NIOSH’s employees had been reinstated.
The HHS did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
In April, around 875 of NIOSH’s roughly 1,000-strong workforce were terminated across the country, amid sweeping job cuts by the HHS that affected several high-profile agencies including the FDA, CDC and the National Institutes of Health.
Reuters had reported that those potential job cuts, as well as the cuts at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, were putting miners at risk even as President Donald Trump called for a revival of the coal industry.
The NIOSH is the U.S. federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations to prevent work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)
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