JPL Hit With One other 550 Layoffs as NASA’s Finances Disaster Deepens

Roughly 550 staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are dropping their jobs as we speak within the fourth spherical of layoffs because the starting of final yr. This newest minimize provides to mounting uncertainty round the way forward for the federally funded analysis heart and the missions it’s concerned in.

In an replace on Monday, JPL director Dave Gallagher announced that the California-based lab will bear a employees discount affecting roughly 11% of its workforce throughout technical, enterprise, and assist areas. The discount is a part of a reorganization that started in July and isn’t associated to the present authorities shutdown, in keeping with the replace.

“I acknowledge this can be a super quantity of change in a brief time frame and can be difficult for our complete group within the coming weeks,” Gallagher wrote in an inside memo to JPL staff, in keeping with NASA Watch.

“Whereas not simple, I imagine taking these actions now will assist the Lab remodel on the scale and tempo crucial to assist obtain humanity’s boldest ambitions in house,” he stated.

Seemingly limitless blows to JPL’s workforce

With the addition of this most up-to-date employees discount, JPL has laid off greater than 1,500 staffers and contractors in 4 rounds of cuts since January 2024. The primary spherical noticed 100 contractors sacked, adopted by 530 staffers and another 40 contractors in February 2024. In November of that yr, 325 extra staff have been let go.

Laurie Leshin, director of the lab in the course of the 2024 layoffs, cited finances constraints and uncertainties surrounding the JPL-spearheaded Mars Pattern Return mission as the explanation for the cuts. In Might 2025—simply days after President Donald Trump released his “skinny” finances request for fiscal yr 2026—she resigned as a consequence of “private causes” and was changed by Gallagher.

That finances request sought to reduce NASA’s overall budget by nearly $6 billion in comparison with 2025, placing a few of the company’s most formidable missions on the chopping block. Now, the fate of those missions hangs in the balance as we enter the third week of a authorities shutdown as a consequence of a finances dispute.

NASA at odds with its personal mission

Two days earlier than the shutdown, the Democratic employees of the Senate Commerce Committee released a report alleging that the White Home finances workplace has been pushing NASA to hold out the “devastating” cuts outlined within the 2026 finances proposal for months, citing proof gleaned from whistleblower paperwork and interviews.

Once more, JPL stated this newest employees minimize is a part of a reorganization course of that’s unrelated to the federal government shutdown. That stated, it’s unfolding amid perceived political strain to downsize NASA no matter whether or not Trump’s finances request for the company is in the end accepted.

“I’ve spoken with a number of individuals who have been informed point-blank that’s what is going on,” Keith Cowing, an astrobiologist and former NASA worker who now serves as editor of NASA Watch, informed Gizmodo. “[NASA] had an inside verbal order saying that is the finances you’re employed to, and if there’s a shutdown, that’s the place we go,” Cowing stated.

The Trump administration’s effort to intestine NASA’s workforce undermines its objective of beating China back to the Moon and sustaining U.S. management in house. Even when NASA is spared from main finances cuts and key mission cancellations, the loss of thousands of engineers and scientists will inevitably hamper its capacity to fulfill such formidable goals.

“When you actually need NASA to be that chief—not simply to win, but in addition to indicate why we gained—you’ll be doing the precise reverse of what you’re doing at NASA proper now,” Cowing stated.

JPL’s press workplace declined to remark and as a substitute referred Gizmodo to the workforce replace made Monday.