The U.S. State Department has received the highest number of applicants for diplomatic service positions in a decade. The increase is linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda.

“Today, more Americans want to work at the State Department as diplomats than at any other time in the past ten years,” the department stated on its X (formerly Twitter) account.

An accompanying infographic noted that since Trump’s inauguration at the beginning of 2025, the State Department has received 5,700 applications for diplomatic service positions. By comparison, after Joe Biden took office, the number was 1,500.

On July 11, the Associated Press reported that the State Department had begun a mass downsizing, involving the reduction of 1,300 employees. This is part of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s reorganization plan aimed at financial savings and ideological adjustments.

As announced by Rubio at the end of April, the Trump-led U.S. administration plans a “comprehensive reorganization” of the State Department, primarily reducing the bureaucratic apparatus. According to The Washington Post, Rubio’s plan may result in the dismissal of tens of thousands of State Department employees (out of roughly 80,000), as well as the closure of several embassies and foreign policy programs. It is expected that around 15% of personnel (about 3,400 employees) at the department’s central headquarters will be affected by the reductions.