PASADENA — Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena announced on Tuesday, Feb. 6, that it will lay off about 530 people as a lab-wide cost-cutting measure that will also include the elimination of about 40 contractors.
“The impacts will occur across both technical and support areas of the lab,” according to a JPL statement. “These are painful but necessary adjustments that will enable us to adhere to our budget allocation while continuing our important work for NASA and our nation.”
The 530 layoffs represent about 8% of the lab’s total staffing.
JPL Director Laurie Leshin broke to the news in a memo to lab workers Tuesday, writing, “These cuts are among the most challenging that we have had to make even as we have sought to reduce our spending in recent months.”
Leshin noted that while the lab awaits word from Congress on funding for the much-publicized Mars Sample Return mission — an effort to retrieve soil and rock samples collected by a Mars rover and return them to Earth for study — officials were already under the gun to cut costs, leading to a hiring freeze, a reduction in some MSR mission contracts, budget cuts and elimination of some on-site contractors.
She noted that NASA previously told JPL to expect an MSR budget of $300 million, a 63% drop from the previous year.
“Unfortunately, those actions alone are not enough for us to make it through the remainder of the fiscal year,” Leshin wrote. “So in the absence of an appropriation, and as much as we wish we didn’t need to take this action, we must now move forward to protect against even deeper cuts later were we to wait.”
People being laid off are expected to be notified on Wednesday. Leshin instructed most employees to work from home on Wednesday so they can “be in a safe, comfortable environment on a stressful day.”
Those who are laid off will continue receiving their salary for 60 days, and those who are eligible will also be offered severance packages,…
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