The second round of deferred resignations for NASA staff closed on Friday, and the agency says roughly 3,000 employees applied to leave, according to . The Trump administration first as a buyout to government workers in January as it gutted the federal workforce under the guidance of — — asking employees to resign while still receiving benefits and pay for a period of time. In the earlier round, 870 NASA employees reportedly opted to leave. The space agency opened a second round in June, with a July 25 deadline.
The latest batch of applications brings the total to nearly 4,000 employees, or roughly 20 percent of NASA’s workforce, according to a statement provided to Bloomberg. It comes after reported earlier this month that over 2,000 senior NASA staff members .
NASA is grappling with proposed and result in the loss of thousands of jobs. A group of current and former NASA employees called on Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy to reject the “harmful cuts” in a published on July 21, writing that recent policies “threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.”