On February 4, 2025, Politico reported that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is threatened with mass layoffs in the coming months. A high level NSF official indicated that the layoffs may impact up to half of the agency’s staff. NSF employees were informed of the impending layoffs by Assistant Director Susan Margulies at a recent staff meeting. A program manager at NSF warned that major budget and staff cuts at “the $10 billion grantmaking agency . . . would ‘gut the intellectual center of U.S. leadership in science and technology.’”
Update: On February 18, 2025, 168 NSF employees (roughly 10% of the agency’s workforce) were terminated. This includes many program officers, who manage research programs and grants, and all “intermittent experts,” temporary employees who are hired to provide expertise on specific subjects.
Update: On March 3, 2025, NSF announced that it would be rehiring 84 probationary employees who had been fired, after a federal judge ordered the Office of Personnel Management to inform several agencies that it did not have the authority to direct them to carry out mass firings.