US HHS reverses job cuts at safety research agency

Jan 14 (Reuters) – The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is reversing staffing cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, reinstating employees at the agency that provides research and services for coal miners, firefighters and others, according to an agency spokesperson.

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.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed that the staffing cuts were reversed on Tuesday night.

“The Trump administration is committed to protecting essential services – whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases,” Nixon said in a statement.

The reversal was first reported by Bloomberg.

In April, around 875 of NIOSH’s roughly 1,000-strong workforce were terminated across the country, as part of 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 Trump called for a revival of the coal industry.

The cuts also threatened worker safety training for those in the fishing industry, farmers and others in some of the country’s most dangerous jobs.

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 and Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Bill Berkrot)