Cuts drain federal government of technical expertise

Axios

03-03-2025

Employee buyouts, terminations and uncertainty at multiple federal agencies are sparking warnings about an erosion of scientific and technical expertise at a crucial moment.
Why it matters: No one country now dominates in every scientific field. The U.S. is in a tight competition with China for science and tech leadership as innovation amasses more economic value and geopolitical tensions rise.
"It doesn't just impact federal employees," said a former National Science Foundation employee. "It will reduce our ability to maintain any leadership in the international landscape."
The big picture: By purging workers as well as enticing people to quit via early retirement, the federal government has cast aside specialists needed to help agencies fulfill their missions.
Rocket scientists, ecologists, climate scientists, AI experts, chemists and other highly skilled workers have been affected.
The scientists who remain at agencies are trying to do more with less, while in many cases anxiously awaiting more cuts.
Zoom in: Agencies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are seeing a slew of early retirements plus job cuts that have either been carried out or are likely to come.
People are "walking away with years of institutional knowledge," one current NOAA scientist said.
"The door is revolving pretty quickly at NASA right now," one current space agency worker said. "They are losing people with tremendous amounts of experience."
Axios spoke to four current employees, and four who lost their jobs in recent weeks, who requested anonymity out of fear of retribution. They expressed concerns about a brain drain and loss of expertise.
Catch up quick: The National Science Foundation on Feb. 18 cut 168 employees — about 10% of its staff.
Half were probationary employees, many of whom have Ph.D.s in their fields.
The other half were contract workers who are highly specialized in their fields and who often work full-time jobs at universities and other institutions.
The intrigue: NOAA is bracing for cuts to its probationary workforce, and is already losing employees to the early retirement offer.
The top climate and weather agency also operates satellites, manages national fisheries and handles marine species protection.
NASA appears to have avoided immediate and sweeping cuts to its probationary staff — but a wave of high-profile retirements have cast uncertainty over the flagship Artemis Mission to return to the Moon.
"Everyone is wondering if the other shoe is going to drop or what they're going to hear next week or never. It's terrible," one NASA employee said, adding that it has already driven people away.
About 5% of NASA's workforce took the administration's deferred resignation buyout deal, NASA stated. The agency said it plans to cut its probationary workforce based on employee performance.
The other side: Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, President Trump trumpeted his general efforts to cut government.
"We have escorted the radical-left bureaucrats out of the building and have locked the doors behind them," he said. "We've gotten rid of thousands."
In an earlier post on Truth Social, he praised Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency: "ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE."
NASA and NSF didn't respond to questions about concerns of loss of expertise.
Between the lines: Probationary employees have typically been in their roles less than one or two years.
But that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't worked in the government for longer. The probationary clock can sometimes reset when someone is promoted, transferred between agencies or steps into a new role.
The impact: The consequences of losing scientists, engineers, technicians and educators who conduct research, review grant applications, engage with communities across the country and oversee programs and missions will come in waves, several people said.
"The immediate loss is by removing all the people we brought in to fill critical gaps in ecological modeling, advanced survey statistics, cloud and AI advancements," the current NOAA scientist said.
The main role of NSF is assessing proposals from scientists and engineers for taxpayer-funded research. Its annual budget is roughly $9 billion.
"We need people who are incredibly smart with the expertise to determine if research is feasible and if it is moving the needle forward," the former NSF employee said.
What to watch: A secondary impact may be on the pipeline of future STEM talent in the U.S.
The cuts "remove all desire for new workers to look at the government as a realistic option," the NOAA scientist said.
It is "chopping off the whole younger layer, which any place needs to survive. These are people who know AI and have grown up with this stuff that these old fogies haven't."
"To move us forward, we need them."