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‘A workplace crisis:’ Nearly all Foreign Service employees report lower morale in union-led survey
The State Department’s diplomatic workforce is feeling overburdened, under-resourced and more likely to leave in the next few years, given sweeping changes happening under the Trump administration, according to a survey conducted by its union.
In a survey of more than 2,100 active-duty Foreign Service employees, the American Foreign Service Association found that 98% of respondents reported reduced morale this year.
About 86% of respondents said workplace changes since January have affected their ability to advance U.S. diplomatic priorities.
Before the Trump administration, about 17,000 active-duty Foreign Service officers worked for the State Department. AFSA estimates that nearly 25% of its workforce left this year — when counting layoffs, retirements and those who accepted deferred resignation offers.
Nearly a third of survey respondents said they have changed their career plans since the beginning of this year.
More than 80% of respondents said they entered the Service intending to serve 20 years or more — but now about 22% of them say they plan to leave the State Department within the next year or two.
AFSA President John Dinkelman said in a call Wednesday that survey results demonstrate a “workplace crisis” at the State Department that will take “years, if not decades, to repair.”
“When we undermine the Foreign Service, we undermine America’s ability to prevent conflict, support our allies, and protect our citizens abroad. In short, we weaken our global leadership,” Dinkelman said.
The State Department sent layoff notices to nearly 1,350 of its employees this summer. Those reductions in force will be finalized, once nearly 250 Foreign Service officers officially separate from the agency this Friday.
The department carried out a massive agency reorganization this year, consolidating and eliminating hundreds of offices.
After sending the mass layoff notices in July, the department began hiring new Foreign Service officers this fall.
Some candidates in the hiring pipeline had to retake a new version of the Foreign Service Officer Test that had been vetted by the Trump administration. The State Department has also made “fidelity” to the administration’s policy goals part of the new criteria to determine if Foreign Service officers are eligible for promotions.
Dinkelman said that the expertise of the Foreign Service “is not easily rebuilt,” and that the State Department will have less experienced diplomats filling its depleted ranks.
“While we certainly will be able to find individuals to enter the service and begin again, those individuals who come in in 2026, ‘27 and ‘28 will not have the expertise, that will have been lost in these previous years, for decades to come,” Dinkelman said.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “values candid insights from patriotic Americans who have chosen to serve their country.”
“In fact, this administration reorganized the entire State Department to ensure those on the front lines – the regional bureaus and the embassies – are in a position to impact policies,” Pigott said. “What we will not tolerate is people using their positions to actively undermine the duly elected president’s objectives.”
AFSA conducted the survey to gather feedback that its members have not been able to share with agency leadership.
Federal News Network first reported this summer that the Trump administration will not conduct the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey this year, a governmentwide scorecard that tracks employee satisfaction.
“We knew that AFSA had a responsibility to step into this breach,” Dinkelman said. “This report offers the first independent snapshot of the Foreign Service during a period of sustained institutional stress.”
The 2024 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government scorecard, which parses FEVS data and is tracked by the Partnership for Public Service, shows the State Department received a 62.8 satisfaction score from employees — and ranked 16th for employee satisfaction among 18 large federal agencies.
About 78% of respondents said they are operating under reduced budgets this year, while 64% said key projects and initiatives are being delayed or suspended.
“I’ve served in hardship posts and multiple unaccompanied tours, but I never expected by my own government to openly disparage public service or the work of public servants,” an anonymous Foreign Service officer told AFSA.
Rohit Nepal, AFSA’s vice president for the State Department, said active-duty Foreign Service officers are being asked to take on more work from offices that have been eliminated, following the reorganization.
More than 60% of survey respondents agreed they are managing “significantly higher workloads due to staffing losses.”
“We’re talking about offices working on some of our highest priorities That could be the war in Gaza, Ukraine, our strategic competition with China. In other words, these folks are being asked to do more without the necessary resources to actually accomplish the job. It’s taking a toll on them,” Nepal said.
Nepal, who is an active-duty Foreign Service officer, said a hiring freeze this year led to key positions going unfilled during his last post in Amman, Jordan.
“We found ourselves unable to hire, even while we were dealing with an exchange of regular Iranian missile exchanges over Jordanian skies during the Israel-Iran war,” he said.
Nepal said Foreign Service officers are “reading the political tea leaves,” and avoiding certain types of jobs.
Nepal said a junior public diplomacy officer told him that they weren’t going to bid on jobs in public diplomacy, because “clearly we don’t care about PD anymore.”
Nepal said another Foreign Service officer with years of experience on refugee and human rights issues told him that “there’s no place for people like her in the department right now.”
“Let’s be clear: American diplomacy is weaker because of this politicization. Talented diplomats aren’t being selected for jobs or are not stepping forward because they believe they can’t get a fair shake in this environment,” Nepal said.
The report calls on Congress to intervene with sweeping changes happening to the agency, and that lawmakers “should make clear that career professionals cannot be punished, reassigned, or dismissed for political reasons.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), co-founder of the Senate Foreign Service Caucus, said in a statement that the report shows “a year of relentless attacks by the administration against these dedicated public servants has left our diplomatic corps in crisis — a vulnerability that our adversaries are all too happy to exploit.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, former Director General of the Foreign Service and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement that “AFSA’s data confirms we’re asking our diplomats to do more with less precisely when robust engagement is needed most.”
The post ‘A workplace crisis:’ Nearly all Foreign Service employees report lower morale in union-led survey first appeared on Federal News Network.
© Mandel Ngan, Pool via AP
