Many of NOAA’s 650 fired employees weren’t scientific neophytes. Nor were they bureaucrats pushing paper through the nation’s weather, climate and oceans agency.
In the wake of last week’s purge of probationary employees — typically workers in the first year or two of a new position — it’s become clear that a cross section of scientists, regulators and policy experts who dedicated their lives to government service were lost in the firings.
NOAA’s workforce is as diverse as the agency itself, whose mission extends from the ocean bottom to outer space. The agency — which had about 12,000 employees before the recent firings — is arguably one of the most unique in the federal government, one where weather and climate, oceans and fisheries, satellites, mariners and pilots share a common home.
The Trump administration’s downsizing across the federal government has been led by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The probationary workers dismissed in recent weeks have ranged from junior staffers just starting their careers to more senior people in new jobs.
