So far in 2025, combined penalty numbers for the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S Department of Labor are down sharply…
Funding for both WHD and OSHA is at risk under the FY 2026 Labor Department budget proposal. WHD is slated to lose nearly a third of its investigators and OSHA 12% of its enforcement staff.
[C]urrent enforcement staff for the WHD is at its lowest level since records have been kept, with a mere 611 investigators. An unknown number of investigators at the WHD accepted deferred resignation offers from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)….
It remains unclear what impact DOGE layoffs may have had on OSHA earlier in 2025. While DOGE announced closures of nearly a dozen OSHA field offices across the country, those plans were later abandoned. Some OSHA staff did take the deferred resignation option offered by DOGE, but inspectors and investigators were not included in this program.
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