GM Authority – NHTSA To Cut 25 Percent Of Its Workforce: Report
Editors note: ironically, cutting NHTSA staff will significantly impede creating regulations for autonomous driving, which will slow down implementations and put the US significantly behind China.
See original article by George Barta at GM Authority
Reuters reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is eliminating more than 25 percent of its staff as part of the Trump administration’s budget-cutting efforts. Other subsidiaries of the U.S. Transportation Department, such as the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration, are undergoing similar staff reductions.
The NHTSA had a total staff of 722 employees as of May 2025, and that number is projected to drop to 555 under financial incentive programs that the government is offering employees. The Transportation Department overall is dropping from approximately 57,000 down to 52,862.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declined to confirm whether layoffs were happening in the NHTSA. “If we have bloat in certain areas, we’ll reduce force,” Duffy told the press, adding the department would rehire back into some areas if needed. “We feel good where we’re at right now, but we’ll continue to assess where we’re at with our staffing needs.” He added that the department hasn’t cut any safety-critical employees.
While a 25 percent staff reduction may seem drastic, the NHTSA said earlier this year that it grew by 30 percent under the Biden administration. A 25 percent cut in 2025 would bring the agency’s size closer to what it was as recently as 2021.
Consumer advocacy groups are expressing concern that the Transportation Department staffing cuts could harm “the agency’s ability to conduct rulemaking, enforcement actions, and research and analysis. ” They’re “particularly concerned that such funding cuts may lead to further firings or forced retirements, which have decimated NHTSA.”
In related news, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law on July 4th, which contains much car-related legislation. The new law eliminates fines for automakers failing to meet corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards first established in 1975. As recently as last Summer, GM had to pay a $145.8 million fine to the NHTSA because of excess emissions from several million 2012 through 2018 model-year trucks and crossovers. Since CAFE standards are now effectively unenforced, the NHTSA will presumably require less staff to deal with enforcement and compliance with such regulations.
See original article by George Barta at GM Authority
