Thousands of federal employees fired from US regulatory and science funding agencies

Over the past week, thousands of employees have been fired across multiple US regulatory and science funding agencies. The majority of those affected were probationary employees, a classification that includes newly hired or recently promoted workers who haven’t been in their positions long enough to qualify for civil service protections.

Although the immediate effects of the layoffs will be felt most keenly by those who now find themselves out of a job, the impacts are expected to be wide reaching, affecting areas that include food safety, as well as public health and other initiatives across the US.

The National Science Foundation was the latest agency to fire a significant portion of its employees. In an email, an NSF spokesperson says that 168 people—or about 10% of its permanent workforce—were informed during a hybrid meeting on Feb. 18 that their employment would be terminated by the end of the business day.

According to the spokesperson, the purpose of the firings was to comply with an executive order, issued Feb. 11, that directed agencies to implement large-scale reductions in the federal workforce.

One former NSF employee, who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly about the situation, says they along with 64 others fired on Tuesday were classified as “experts”—temporary employees hired by the NSF on a part-time, at-will basis for their subject matter knowledge. The remainder were federal workers who were still in their probationary periods.

Both the former NSF expert and a current NSF program officer, who insisted on remaining anonymous because they feared retaliation, say that some of the terminated probationary employees should have been considered permanent hires and therefore not subject to the layoffs. But their probationary periods were unexpectedly extended earlier this month.

According to the former NSF expert, some of the fired employees were in the middle of running grant review panels. Others were the sole contact person for some grant solicitations. “If you're a [principal investigator] hoping to get some information about that solicitation, it's unclear who to even reach out to at that point,” they say.

Every NSF directorate was affected by the firings, the current NSF program officer says. “We’ve lost decades of experience.”

HHS lays off 5,200

Before the NSF layoffs, the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration, among other agencies, removed about 5,200 probationary employees, the Associated Press (AP) reported, citing an audio recording of an NIH meeting.

At NIH, between 1,000 and 1,200 scientists, program managers, scientific review officers, and program staff were terminated on Feb. 14 and 15. The agency’s workforce as of March 2024 included 20,570 people, according to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website.

One NIH employee, a scientific review officer who had started less than a year ago, told C&EN that they received a termination email on Feb. 15 citing inadequate performance. They were fired despite being told by their supervisor the previous day that their name did not appear on the termination list. The worker insisted on anonymity because of concerns about family members still working for the federal government.

The layoffs, along with other recent developments at the agency, have made it difficult for scientists who depend on NIH grants to obtain updates or submit required progress reports to the agency. “Communications from NIH staff about basic administrative tasks . . . have been almost completely cut off,” Jonathan Sebat, a geneticist at the University of California San Diego tells C&EN in an email. “It just creates chaos and inefficiency.”

At the CDC, the AP reported Feb. 14 that about 1,300 probationary employees were set to lose their jobs. The CDC didn’t immediately respond to C&EN’s request to confirm that number. They included the agency’s Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) fellows, who are trained in biosafety, quality control, and laboratory management as part of a 2-year program.

The termination letter, which has been reviewed by C&EN, stated that the LLS fellows would be placed on administrative leave effective March 14. The reason: their abilities, knowledge, and skills didn’t meet the agency’s current needs, and their performance had not been adequate to justify further employment.

“It’s devastating,” says a current LLS fellow who spoke with C&EN only on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. But “we’re more devastated and worried about what this means—not just our termination but other [announced] layoffs and blockages in funding—for the field of science, health care, and public health in general.”

Also on the firing line were recent graduates of CDC’s 2-year Public Health Associate Program, which serves as a foundation for early-career professionals to embark on a career in public health.

In an email to C&EN, the CDC confirmed that officers in the center’s 2-year Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program remain in their positions. There were previous media reports that stated first-year EIS officers were set to be terminated as part of the layoffs at the CDC.

Meanwhile, hundreds of staffers at the FDA had their positions eliminated, according to reporting by Stat News and the AP. Those reportedly include probationary employees, attorneys in the FDA's office of general counsel, at least one person who had been monitoring the infant formula supply chain, and people in the agency's Center for Devices and Radiological Health who were responsible for regulating artificial intelligence–enabling medical devices.

C&EN reached out to the FDA for comment but was unable to confirm the reports independently by press time.

The turmoil at the FDA could also impact the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, which depend on the agency for their business. Understaffing could lead to delays in new drug approvals, for instance.

Biopharma leaders see a potential ally in Marty Makary, President Donald J. Trump's nominee for FDA commissioner, but it is likely to be months before he's confirmed by the Senate, according to Stuart Pape, the FDA’s former associate chief counsel for food who now chairs the FDA practice at the law firm Polsinelli.

"We'll see if there's anybody left at the FDA by the time he's confirmed," Pape says. Most of his clients are still in a "wait-and-see posture," he says, since it's not yet clear how the changes at the FDA will materially impact their interactions with the regulator.

The layoffs on the food side of the agency come despite Trump’s executive order Feb. 13 establishing a Make America Healthy Again Commission and requiring the FDA and other federal agencies to evaluate the role of food ingredients in chronic inflammation and other mechanisms of disease in children.

“The Trump administration’s decision to fire career experts across FDA’s food division will make it much harder for the agency to make sure the food we eat won’t make us sick, and it’s a sign that they don’t take the safety of our food seriously,” Sarah Vogel, senior vice president of healthy communities at the Environmental Defense Fund, says in a statement.

The layoffs also triggered the abrupt departure of Jim Jones, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods. Jones submitted his resignation Feb. 17, citing dozens of indiscriminate layoffs in the human foods program, including the firing of 10 people responsible for reviewing the safety of chemicals added to food.

The FDA hired Jones in September 2023 to spearhead the reorganization of its food division. He was working to develop a systematic approach for reviewing the safety of 10,000-plus chemical food additives, but that project was stymied by a lack of funding.

DOE also hit

The US Department of Energy (DOE) was another executive department impacted by layoffs, although not to the same extent as some other agencies. Many of the DOE firings were at the National Nuclear Security Administration and were then rescinded.

In addition, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), one of 17 DOE national laboratories, laid off more than half of roughly 100 probationary employees on Feb. 13, according to an NETL contractor who insisted on remaining anonymous.

The NETL has around 700 federal employees, of which 28 took the fork-in-the-road deal offered on Jan. 28. The deal promised full pay and benefits until September for those who voluntarily left the federal workforce.

Because the other 16 DOE national laboratories are government owned but operated by contractors such as private companies and universities, they have not been affected by the recent layoffs. Staff attrition at these labs will probably result from expected funding decreases.

Layoffs have also occurred in the DOE’s Loan Programs Office and other parts of the agency.

Workers have also been fired at the Environmental Protection Agency and other parts of the federal government, with more layoffs likely to come. A coalition of five federal worker unions has sued the Trump administration to prevent it from carrying out more mass firings. A judge on Feb. 20 denied a temporary restraining order sought by the plaintiffs.