Confusing, Hundreds of US Employees Rehired After Sudden Layoffs

WASHINGTON, MONDAY - The administration of United States President Donald Trump rehired hundreds of federal employees after sending them dismissal letters. These employees are responsible for handling the nuclear weapons program.

The change has left workers confused in uncertainty. This is considered to indicate a lack of thorough preparation in the US bureaucracy cuts.

Three U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, Sunday (16/2/2025) local time, said that around 350 employees at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) received sudden layoff notices on Thursday (13/2/2025) night.

However, the following day, Friday night (14/2/2025), Acting Director of NNSA Teresa Robbins issued a memo that revoked the dismissals. The memo applied to most of the employees who had been terminated the previous day. Only 28 staff members were ultimately dismissed.

"This letter serves as official notification that the termination decision issued to you on February 13, 2025, has been revoked, effective immediately," the memo stated.

Initially, hundreds of people who were dismissed at NNSA were part of a cleanup by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by billionaire Elon Musk in the US Department of Energy.

One of the most affected offices is the Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, which initially experienced a reduction of about 30 percent of its workers. Some of these employees work to reassemble nuclear warheads.

Some of them only found out they were laid off when they couldn't access their office email. Others tried to get into the office on Friday morning but didn't have access to it.

In fact, this position is one of the most sensitive jobs in the entire nuclear weapons company with the highest level of clearance. "The DOGE people came in with no idea what these departments were responsible for," said Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, referring to Musk's DOGE team.

"They don't seem to realize that it's actually a nuclear weapons department, not just the Department of Energy," he added.

The three officials' accounts differ from the official statement from the U.S. Department of Energy, which said fewer than 50 NNSA employees were laid off. The statement described them as probationary employees who held administrative and clerical roles.

The firings were criticized by senior NNSA staff. "This is a pivotal moment. We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or whether we are content to undermine the systems that secure our nation's future," Division Deputy Director Rob Plonski said in a LinkedIn post.

He said cutting the federal workforce responsible for nuclear weapons functions could be considered reckless at best and opportunistic at worst.

The US National Nuclear Security Administration is part of the Department of Energy and employs about 2,000 people worldwide. Its job is to secure nuclear material, including in Ukraine as Russia's war continues.

NNSA staff who were reinstated after being fired could not be reached. Some are reportedly still considering returning, given the uncertainty created by DOGE.

Many federal nuclear workers have spent their entire careers there. A wave of retirements in recent years has cost the agency a valuable human resource.

The NNSA is currently developing a $750 billion nuclear weapons upgrade program, which includes new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers, and new submarine-launched warheads.

This letter serves as official notification that the termination decision issued to you on February 13, 2025 has been cancelled, effective immediately.

To that end, NNSA has been aggressively recruiting new employees over the past few years: By 2023, 60 percent of the workforce will have worked there for five years or less.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the firings could disrupt the agency’s day-to-day operations and create a sense of instability over the nuclear program, both at home and abroad.

"I think the signal to America's adversaries is pretty clear, it's throwing the entire national security apparatus into chaos and causing chaos. That's only going to benefit the adversaries of this country," he said.

While some of the employees at the US Department of Energy who were still fired included those working on energy efficiency and the impact of climate change, both issues were not priorities for Trump.

Many of the other employees who were fired worked on nuclear issues but not directly on weapons programs. This includes the part that manages radioactive waste to ensure that the material there does not contaminate surrounding communities.

Among them are the Savannah River National Laboratory in Jackson, South Carolina, the Hanford Nuclear Site, and the nuclear facility at Oak Ridge Reservoir.

The Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State is where workers are securing 177 tanks of high-level waste. It was previously used to produce plutonium for atomic bombs. The Oak Ridge Reservoir in Tennessee is a Superfund contamination site, where much of the early work on the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project, was done.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, both Democrats, called the firings at NSSA "heartless" and "exposing the public to nuclear dangers."

Trump and Musk’s red tape-cutting program continues to expand. The US National Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly laying off thousands of employees this week, following the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last weekend. The DOGE team is also reportedly targeting the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

DOGE personnel will visit the FAA's Air Traffic Control command center in Warrenton, Virginia, on Monday (2/17/2025). The Trump administration has said it wants to reform the system there.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed the plans in a social media post. “DOGE personnel will get a firsthand look at the current system. They will learn what air traffic controllers like and don’t like about their tools, and imagine how we can make the system new, better, modern, and safer,” he said.

The Trump administration has reversed course and denied FAA air traffic controllers or safety officers participation in the government's incentive program to resign.

On Saturday, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union said several hundred FAA probationary employees had been laid off. The union said the draconian move would increase workloads and place new responsibilities on an already overstretched workforce. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At the FDA, as at other institutions, layoffs have targeted newly hired employees, including staff who review the safety of food, medical devices and other products.

Probationary employees at the FDA received notice that their jobs would be eliminated on Saturday (2/15/2025) evening. Three staff confirmed the news on condition of anonymity for fear of being named.

It is not yet clear how many positions will be eliminated. The layoffs appear to be focused on employees at the agency’s centers for food, medical devices and tobacco products that include e-cigarette oversight.

On Friday, officials estimated that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would lay off 5,200 probationary employees across the agency, according to an audio recording of a meeting of the department’s National Institutes of Health (NIH). HHS oversees the NIH, FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal health agencies.

As of Sunday afternoon, about 700 people at CDC had received layoff notices. Earlier reports suggested the CDC would be cutting 1,300 people.

Sources say the CDC layoffs do not include young doctors and researchers in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, which tracks diseases.

An HHS spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon.

The FDA, headquartered in a Maryland suburb outside Washington and employing nearly 20,000 people, has long been a target of criticism from Robert Kennedy Jr., now the U.S. health secretary.

Last year, Kennedy accused the agency of waging a war on public health. Kennedy has also expressed opposition to unproven treatments such as psychedelics, stem cells and chelation therapy. The anti-vaxxer has called for the removal of thousands of chemicals and dyes from U.S. food.

Nearly half of the FDA’s $6.9 billion budget comes from payments from companies regulated by the agency. These companies include drug and medical device manufacturers. The money from those companies allows the FDA to hire additional scientists to review products quickly.

An HHS spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon.

Peter Pitts, a former FDA associate commissioner under President George W. Bush, said cutting new hires could backfire, eliminating staff who tend to be younger and have more advanced technical skills.

With the cuts, the FDA workforce is dominated by senior workers who have worked at the agency for a decade or two.

Moreover, in 2022, the Government Accountability Office noted, the FDA has historically faced challenges in recruiting and retaining staff because the private sector offers much better pay.

"You want to bring in new blood. You want people with new ideas, more enthusiasm and the latest thinking in terms of technology," he said.

Mitch Zeller, a former FDA director for tobacco, said the firings would lower morale and demoralize federal employees. (AP/Reuters)