Suddenly There Are Federal Layoffs

Just this morning:

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly extended a buyout offer to its entire workforce.

This follows President Trump’s proposal to encourage millions of federal workers to resign by February 6 in exchange for pay and benefits lasting until September 30.

Trump is offering the buyouts to make sure all federal workers are “on board with the new administration’s plan to have federal employees in office,” CNBC reported.

Only 6% of all federal workers actually work full-time in the office!

This follows:

After going offline over the weekend as part of Trump’s goal to streamline federal operations and slash government spending, the official website of USAID is back online—but not for the reasons anyone expected.

The agency’s website now serves as a digital pink slip for its global workforce.

All USAID direct hire personnel are to be placed on administrative leave globally, with mandates for many to return to the U.S. This directive excludes only those deemed essential for “mission-critical functions.”

But the cuts won't stop with just the direct hires at USAID:

Last month, the State Department ordered an immediate pause on U.S. foreign aid for 90 days and issued “stop-work orders” on nearly all existing foreign assistance awards. This swift decision has effectively left many government contractors and global aid providers — including groups that supply HIV/AIDS care, provide child health services, set up education programs, fight food insecurity and counter disinformation in developing nations — struggling to operate or pay their workers.

Eight U.S.-based individuals who work in the foreign aid sector, all granted anonymity due to concerns about retaliation from the administration, told POLITICO that the foreign aid freeze had undermined their ability to carry out global aid efforts. Some predict that thousands of foreign aid professionals across the industry may soon be out of work.

“I can’t even begin to describe how cataclysmic it is, everyone is furloughing or laying off staff,” said one person. “It’s almost 5,000 people, and it’s just starting.”

And it's not just foreign aid:

The Trump administration has sent shockwaves through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by notifying over 1,000 employees that they are on the chopping block, marking a decisive step in dismantling bloated government agencies notorious for regulatory overreach.

EPA employees who have been with the agency for less than a year received an email last week notifying them that they could be dismissed immediately, according to NBC News citing sources familiar with the matter.

These employees, who are still on their “probationary” status, were bluntly informed that their tenure could end without delay at the administration’s discretion.

“As a probationary/ trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,” the email reads. “The process for probationary removal is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended immediately.”

At the FBI:

On Saturday, the FBI Agents Association issued a statement expressing concern about what it said are further efforts to force FBI agents to quit.

“There are several amongst our ranks who are extremely fearful of being removed — and some of those have started to pack up their desks,” it said in a bulletin to members.

The message gave agents advice about what to do if they believe they are at risk of being fired. “Do NOT resign or offer to resign,” the message said. “While we would never advocate for physical non-compliance, you need to be clear your removal is not voluntary.”

“Stay calm and refrain from making any statements that could be deemed to violate the Hatch Act," it added, referring to law that bars federal civil servants from engaging in political activities. "If you are told you will be terminated, make sure you get the termination notice in writing and forward it to us ASAP.”

After I left graduate school, I spent my whole career in tech. Part of that was in disaster recovery and contingency planning, where the running joke was "a good contingency planner has a current backup copy of his resume off site at all times". In fact, this was pretty much the mindset throughout tech. Every few years, no matter where I worked, my employer was acquired, which meant layoffs, or went bankrupt, which meant layoffs, or waas spun off, which meant layoffs, or downsized, which meant layoffs. Even if I wasn't caught in that particular wave of cuts, the handwriting was always on the wall, and as a good contingency planner, I always more or less had to have my resume out, which meant I also had to have good situational awareness about the job market.

It's hard to avoid thinking federal workers have been in never-never land for quite some time.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee found Wednesday [January 15] that vast numbers of federal employees telework from home, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars spent on office space, and the Biden administration has enabled such accommodations to continue during President-elect Donald Trump’s next administration.

“The Biden-Harris administration has ceded too much authority to the federal union bosses, allowing their preference to work from home to take precedence over fulfilling agencies’ missions and serving the American people,” the committee declared in a report decrying the continued widespread use of telework since the COVID-19 pandemic ended.

"Working from home" was a dodge that I began to see only late in my own career, and it was mostly a perk for the bosses. If the boss didn't feel like coming to work that day, fine, he or she would "work from home", which meant you called in for the staff meeting via conference call, and the boss would be in the family van ferrying the kids to soccer practice while on the call. Given all the potential distractions, even less would get done than in the usual staff meetings. I don't have too much sympathy for those who get laid off:

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” This famous observation was made by Herb Stein, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. It became famous largely because it was just that, obvious. Yet, what is no less obvious is that public policy is commonly based on a wholly contrary assumption, that the future will be like the past, more or less. This is deeply unfortunate since many of the most important systems on which the future of mankind depends are evolving in an unsustainable way.