These 73 employees are reported to all be probationary staff, and 42 of them are employees that were hired based on provisions within the CHIPS and Science Act. The bill, passed in 2022, gave NIST permission to hire multiple subject matter experts in critical technology fields, particularly “scientific, engineering, and professional personnel.”
The firings also included employees from Commerce’s National Technical Information Service.
These terminations come despite the recent California federal court ruling that the Office of Personnel Management lacked the authority to order individual federal agencies to fire employees, specifically concerning the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, as well as the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Small Business Administration and Fish and Wildlife Service. The personnel agency recently retooled guidance to agencies to note that it was not requiring them to fire such employees.
“NIST apparently doesn’t believe the court order applies to it,” an employee impacted by the firings told GovExec. “Two-thirds of the CHIPS for America staff have been fired [Monday] (mostly all probationary).”
Other agencies, including the National Science Foundation, have already begun reinstating previously terminated probationary employees.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to provide more detail on the court ruling.
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