Nearly 4,000 NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program
Workers on scaffolding repaint the NASA logo near the top of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 2020. Photo by John Raoux - AP
Nearly 4,000 NASA employees have opted to leave the space agency through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, NASA said on Saturday.
The cuts amount to an estimated 20% of NASA's workforce, and will reduce the agency from 18,000 to 14,000 employees, NASA spokesperson Cheryl Warner said in a statement shared with NPR. The total number includes the agency's loss of 500 other workers due to normal attrition, she said.
During a second round of the program, which closed at midnight Friday, 3,000 employees applied to leave the agency, Warner said, following the 870 employees that applied to leave during the first round.
