Roughly 1,500 employees — or almost 90% of the agency's staff — will be cut from the CFPB, leaving around 200 people, according to an administration official who wasn't authorized to disclose the figure publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Fox Business first reported the number of layoffs.

President Donald Trump is shrinking the size and the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the latest step in an extraordinary reshaping of the federal government. Employees started receiving layoff notices on Thursday.

The agency, which has returned $21 billion to consumers since its inception, could lose 1,500 of its 1,700 employees, a union warned.