The National Labor Relations Board is closing its Memphis subregional office to reduce operating costs, transferring responsibility for its work to agency staff in New Orleans and Little Rock, Arkansas, as years of staffing losses continue to reshape the federal labor regulator.

The board announced the decision Wednesday in a Federal Register notice, saying the closure would generate significant savings while allowing the agency to maintain services across the affected area.

The NLRB Memphis Subregional Office closure formalizes a change that has effectively been in place for years. The office has had no employees since 2023 because of attrition, according to the agency.

“Employees from the agency's New Orleans and Little Rock, Arkansas offices have been, and will continue to, provide service to the area formerly covered by the Memphis Subregional office,” the board said in its notice.

The agency also expressed confidence that the restructuring would not disrupt its work, stating that it expected no adverse impact on the quality of case handling following the closure.

Memphis Office Closure Targets Cost Savings

The Memphis office operated as part of Region 15, which is headquartered in New Orleans and maintains a resident office in Little Rock. The region covers Louisiana, Mississippi and portions of Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and Missouri.

Although Memphis will no longer function as a subregional office, the board said the change would not alter Region 15's geographic boundaries. Instead, staff in the two remaining offices will continue handling matters previously assigned to Memphis.

The decision comes about two years after Jennifer Abruzzo, who served as the NLRB's general counsel at the time, proposed shutting down the office as part of an effort to reduce expenses.

In Wednesday's announcement, the board said its decision had been informed by comments from stakeholders.

The closure underscores a broader challenge facing the agency: maintaining its regional presence while operating under financial and staffing constraints that have accumulated over more than a decade.

Years of Staffing Losses Weaken Field Offices

The NLRB's budget has failed to keep pace with inflation for more than 10 years, while attrition has eliminated hundreds of positions across the agency.

Those reductions have not been distributed evenly. The agency's field office network has absorbed a heavier share of the losses than its headquarters, leaving regional employees facing heavier workloads and slower case processing.

Memphis illustrates how dramatically staffing levels have changed.

Known internally as subregion 26, the office had nine employees in the agency's fiscal 2013 roster, including four attorneys. A decade later, its staffing had fallen to just one employee, a program support assistant. By fiscal 2024, the office no longer had any employees listed in the agency's roster.

The decline meant the office had already lost its operational workforce before the formal closure was announced. The latest move makes that arrangement official while placing responsibility for the area under neighboring offices.

Trump Administration Sees Continued Staffing Changes

Staffing pressures have persisted during President Donald Trump's second administration. In the year following his inauguration, the agency shed nearly 200 jobs, according to previously reported figures.

The NLRB has also taken steps to rebuild its workforce. Agency data show that it hired 98 employees between June and early September this year.

However, those additions have not fully reversed the losses. During the same period, the agency lost 19 employees, while its overall workforce declined by 50 employees during 2026 through early September, according to agency records.

The figures reveal the difficult balancing act facing the labor board: recruitment has brought new personnel into the agency, but departures continue to erode staffing levels.

Against that backdrop, closing an office that has operated without employees since 2023 offers a way to reduce expenses. Yet the broader challenge remains whether the agency can preserve timely case handling as responsibilities are concentrated in fewer locations.

For now, the NLRB maintains that transferring Memphis's work to New Orleans and Little Rock will allow it to continue serving the same territory without compromising the quality of its work. Whether that arrangement can withstand ongoing staffing and budget pressures will remain an important question for the agency's regional operations.