FDA Hiring Freeze Lifted

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb laid out his early priorities before members of Congress last week and announced that the hiring freeze on the agency had officially been lifted.

Gottlieb told members of a House Appropriations panel that he had notified the agency’s senior staff of the thaw in a memo that morning. The FDA currently has approximately 1,000 vacancies.

The administration’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal still calls for overall reductions in the agency’s workforce, mostly through attrition.

President Trump signed an executive order in January implementing the hiring freeze for all federal agencies. While the freeze was lifted by the Office of Management and Budget in April, it was maintained by HHS, with restrictions based on the administration’s planned cuts for the FDA and other agencies.