FTC Chair Says He Wants to Reduce Agency Staffing Levels by 15%

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said he wants to shrink the agency to around 1,100 full-time employees, a roughly 15% cut from its staffing level at the start of the year.

“We’re trying to get our employee levels down to a place we can actually afford given our current appropriation,” Ferguson testified Thursday during a hearing by the House Appropriations Committee.

The comments came roughly five months into Ferguson’s tenure the head of the FTC, which is responsible for enforcing competition and consumer protection laws. Ferguson inherited a large docket of ongoing legal matters, including monopoly cases against Amazon.com ...