At the behest of Donald Trump’s new administration, the US space agency NASA, like most US government agencies, has to make savings. As a result, almost 1,800 NASA employees have already had to resign in the past four weeks alone, as is now being reported. That is around 10 percent of all people employed by NASA. In addition, further job cuts are expected at NASA in the coming months.
Anzeige
After taking office in January, Donald Trump not only canceled AI security and halted environmental protection and infrastructure, but also announced austerity measures at his agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by US billionaire Elon Musk, has started work amid controversy to make authorities more efficient in line with President Trump’s wishes. This also applies to NASA.
Consensual and involuntary employee departures
Previously, the US space agency said it had almost 18,000 civil servants across the country. But not anymore, as Ars Technica writes. According to the article, sources familiar with NASA affairs report that 750 employees have recently accepted NASA’s offer to leave the space agency early. This is hardly surprising, however, given that NASA loses around 1,000 employees every year for various reasons. These are probably people who were planning to change jobs anyway.
More drastic, however, is the fact that around 1000 NASA employees were dismissed during their probationary period. This is apparently one of Trump and DOGE’s strategies, which has also been implemented at other US agencies, and affects new hires made within the last 12 or 24 months as well as employees who have changed positions internally or have been promoted. At NASA, these cuts have impacted around 1000 employees, according to reports. Together with the employees who left voluntarily, NASA has lost around 10 percent of its workforce.
Further cuts at NASA possible
However, this may not be the end of the job cuts. Several sources report that the heads of various NASA branches have been asked to prepare further “significant” cuts. They are to develop and present several options for this. However, it is still unclear what the scope of the further cost-cutting measures will be and whether they will actually be implemented. This is because the US government has to coordinate the budgets of various agencies such as NASA with the US Congress.
Read also
(fds)