US Agencies Offer Staff Brand-new Buyouts Ahead Of Trump's Layoff Deadline > 자유게시판

• 목록
• 답변
• 글쓰기
• 게시판 리스트 옵션
  • 수정
  • 삭제

Agencies utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement program to cut federal employees

March 13 is due date to submit strategies for large-scale layoffs

Workers would get buyout payment of approximately $25,000

*

Buyout program less vulnerable to legal difficulty

By Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid, Marisa Taylor and Nathan Layne

March 11 (Reuters) - Multiple government agencies are turning to early retirement programs to minimize headcount as they rush to satisfy President Donald Trump's Thursday due date for them to submit plans for a second round of mass layoffs.

The Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Fda, are amongst the firms which have actually offered lump-sum payments of as much as $25,000 before tax to employees who concur to leave their tasks.

The buyout provides, combined with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a lower-friction way to assist meet the Thursday due date, human resource specialists at a number of federal firms informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad suits after it fired countless probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled whole departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid firm, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans against deceitful loan providers.

All U.S. government companies have been ordered to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday as part of Trump's extraordinary project to overhaul the federal government. Among his top advisors, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, is leading that effort with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

The General Services Administration, which manages the government's home portfolio, is likewise looking for approval to use the buyout payments to employees, according to an e-mail sent out by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already offered bonus offers of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resource and public governance specialists stated the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation incentive payments, is that it is voluntary and less susceptible to legal difficulties. It also needs employees who have accepted the deal to pay back the cash if they take another government task within 5 years.

"If your method is to get as many individuals out the door voluntarily, that decreases the threat of court orders and opposition to you in the long run," stated Don Moynihan, a public law teacher at the University of Michigan.

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a couple of companies have telegraphed through media leakages the number of workers they plan to cut in the 2nd phase of layoffs. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is intending to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is preparing to cut 1,029 staff.

Despite the looming due date, no firm has actually yet submitted its job-cutting plan to OPM, the government's human resources department that is collating the data, an individual familiar with the matter informed Reuters. OPM decreased to comment.

OPM itself has provided lump-sum payments to some 650 OPM staff members, according to another person with understanding of the matter. Employees were offered till March 12 to react.

At the General Services Administration, staff members were notified on Monday that OPM had actually greenlit a strategy to provide an early retirement program to all qualified workers.

"I motivate each of you to consider your alternatives as we move on," GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian composed in an email seen by Reuters. "The new GSA will be slimmer, more effective and laser-focused on efficiency and high-value outcomes."

On March 10, the HR department of the Fda sent an e-mail to all its 19,000 a Friday, March 14, deadline to decide into a VSIP. Those who accept would need to retire by April 19.

"There will be no extensions," states the email, reviewed by Reuters and signed by Tania Tse, director of the FDA's Office of Human Capital Management.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its prior VSIP deal by adding that workers accepting it would get two months of full pay in addition to the bonus offer, according to a copy of the e-mail seen by Reuters.

Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 110,000 federal government employees, stated the Trump administration was utilizing "a genuine program to additional damage the capabilities of agencies to complete their objective."

OPM declined to react to Lenkart's remarks. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid, Marisa Taylor and Nathan Layne; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)