NASA Wins Flexibility on Probationary Employees

NASA said today that probationary employees will not be subject to the mass firings happening elsewhere in the government. Instead, any decisions to dismiss them will be performance-based or voluntary. Probationary employees were a small subset of the 5 percent of the NASA workforce who chose the Deferred Resignation buyout. All who did are individually deciding when to depart, with September 30 as the deadline.

In a statement this afternoon, NASA relayed the good news.

Just two days ago it appeared that all the probationary employees — those on the job for less than one year or in some cases two — would be dismissed as has happened at other agencies like the National Science Foundation. It would have meant as much as 10 percent of the NASA workforce. But the White House changed its mind at the last minute.

NASA said yesterday it was working with the Office of Personnel Management to get exemptions for probationary employees in mission critical positions.  Apparently they succeeded.

Still, they will be losing 5 percent of their 18,000 person workforce, about 900 people, between now and September 30 from this round of government downsizing. More rounds are expected.

Discretionary employees are easier to fire because they don’t have the same protections as those in permanent status. The government uses a process called Reduction-in-Force or a RIF to terminate permanent employees. President Trump warned agencies that RIFs would be used if not enough workers chose the buyout. On February 11, he signed an Executive Order directing agencies to “undertake plans for large scale reductions-in-force.”