The Federal Trade Commission’s staffing level should be cut by about 16% from its fiscal year 2025 levels, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson told a House Appropriations subcommittee Thursday, saying he inherited an agency that hired more workers than it could pay.
“The previous administration hired radically more people than we could afford to pay, and we were eating into carryover funds just to cover payroll, which is a deeply irresponsible way to run an agency,” Ferguson said during his first oversight hearing as chair before the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. “My goal was to get, and remains to get, the agency to healthy employee levels in light of the money that Congress appropriated the agency.”