The drama isn't over for federal workers
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All over the country, fired federal workers got a bit of good news this week — they're getting their jobs back. For now, anyway.
Why it matters: The recently rehired could soon become the newly re-fired, and the productivity of the entire federal workforce is taking another hit.
Where it stands: Two federal judges have ordered agencies to reinstate the tens of thousands of probationary workers they've terminated over the past month, but the White House is appealing those orders.
- Meanwhile, the administration has also told agencies to do even more layoffs — this time through the more formal process of reductions in force, or RIFs.
The big picture: In other words, people were fired, now they're being rehired and it's quite possible they'll lose their jobs again — either via a court ruling or another round of layoffs.
By the numbers: More than 24,000 probationary workers who were fired across 18 agencies are in the process of being reinstated, according to data provided to the U.S. District Court in Maryland by the agencies Monday night.
Zoom out: The situation is a hit to productivity at these agencies, and to the economic and psychological well-being of these individuals. It's not great for the economy overall, either.
- "If your employee feels as though they could be cut loose any minute, that no matter what they do, whether they perform well or poorly, they can just be laid off tomorrow, the incentive to perform well disappears," says Julia Pollak, chief economist at job site ZipRecruiter.
- Plus, people who worry about being fired spend less money, she says.
- That means the considerable amount of money the government is spending on rehiring (more on that below) isn't getting funneled back into the economy the form of consumption "because these workers are terrified," says Pollack.
For example: "We really ramped down our spending to just the essentials," says a woman who was just reinstated to her job at the Commerce Department and isn't authorize to speak to media.
- She doesn't trust the reinstatement will last. For starters, like many of these folks, she is on administrative leave and not back to the office.
- She and her husband, also a federal employee, chose not to re-enroll their young child at preschool next year, canceled some home remodeling and put off a plan to have a third child.
- Instead they're planning for disasters — selling the house or other assets, moving.
Adding to the fear, there's some ambiguous language in her reinstatement letter that says it's possible she'd be re-terminated.
- She's not alone, either.
"I'm thrilled, but only to a limit," a reinstated employee at the Department of Transportation told Axios, requesting anonymity to speak freely about work. "There's always a feeling it's going to be taken away again," says this worker, a veteran who's struggled with PTSD.
- "My mental health has taken a major hit."
Between the lines: Many workers weren't simply put on leave, but instead are actually going back to work. That will have costs, too.
- The onboarding process for federal employees is even more expensive than in the private sector — partly due to the cost of security clearances, and the arduous procurement process for equipment. It can take weeks to get a laptop, for example.
- It may cost a bit less to "re-onboard," but a conservative estimate published by a cadre of former employees at the federal U.S. Digital Service, familiar with the inner workings of the federal bureaucracy, puts it between $120 million and $480 million.
- Adding to the problem, many human resource and administrative staffers have been fired, and there are fewer employees to help with the process. "Every task takes forever," one supervisor at the VA tells Axios.
Zoom in: Agencies cite the burden of this work in filings to the Maryland court.
- 11 agencies, including the Commerce Department, USDA and EPA, use some version of this language in their documents:
- Employees "would have to be onboarded again, including going through any applicable training, filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, reinstituting applicable security clearance actions, receiving government furnished equipment."
- Even more acknowledge this isn't the end of the road for anyone: "Employees could be subjected to multiple changes in their employment status in a matter of weeks," is a sentence that appears in filings from 13 different agencies.
The bottom line: Efficient, this is not.
