In a statement, the agency said it worked with the Office of Personnel Management — which has been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce — on “a careful evaluation of our workforce and mission requirements.”
Those discussions led to a determination that job cuts for probationary employees, typically those hired within the past year, will be “performance-based or voluntary by agency policy.”
That move stands in contrast to orders at some other federal agencies in which probationary employees were ordered to be cut across the board.
“The agency will continue to monitor all employee performances and take swift action as appropriate with any issues, ensuring American citizens have an excellent and efficient workforce at NASA,” the space agency’s statement reads.
However, roughly 5% of NASA’s workforce accepted offers under the deferred resignation program — which was a move by the Trump administration to lure federal employees to step down from their roles in exchange for being paid through September, the space agency said. That figure includes a “small subset” of probationary employees, NASA said.
NASA employs nearly 18,000 people, according to the space agency, so roughly 900 workers may have taken that offer.
One NASA employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive topics, expressed concern about how patents and intellectual property may be affected if NASA workers leave their job but are still on the agency’s payroll for the months ahead. It’s not clear how intellectual property issues might play out legally in that regard, the source said.
Concerns in space community
According to two sources familiar with the matter, there were about 1,300 probationary workers at NASA.
The prospect of all probationary employees losing their jobs set off alarm bells in the space community.
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