Just weeks after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump laid off hundreds of employees at NOAA in February, the agency is preparing for another round of layoffs and the closure of more than a dozen offices.
Trump has made shrinking the federal workforce and slashing grant funding a priority during the early days of his administration, tasking Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with leading the cuts. The government first offered a payout to federal employees who agreed to resign but has since begun implementing mass layoffs, targeting probationary employees who have spent less than two years on the job and have fewer job protections.
DOGE first targeted NOAA in early February, entering the agency’s headquarters and gaining access to its IT systems. Less than a month later, the agency laid off hundreds of employees. Democrats and former NOAA officials were quick to criticize the layoffs, saying the reduction in employees will have major repercussions on NOAA’s services and missions.
“Today, over 1,000 scientists and experts at NOAA received the news every federal worker has been dreading. Musk and his fake officials, the DOGE tech bros, have been rummaging through our most sensitive data without authority in violation of the law for weeks now,” U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (D-California) said at the time. “This has come with sweeping, indiscriminate layoffs of nonpartisan public servants. Park rangers, firefighters, scientists – all of these people, whose purpose is to serve everyday Americans, have had the rug pulled out from under them. We will all be worse off for it.”
Now, the agency is preparing for even more cuts, with sources...
