Not crazy about the hed here. There's a strong implication that this is A) full replacement and B) everyone terminated is just going to say, "sure, I'll come back ... surely, there's no chance something like this could happen again."

The net result is fewer positions held by less experienced people. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with entry-level jobs (god knows I've had way more than I should have), but NWS is -- much like a newsroom -- on a set schedule. Education is important, but there's no substitute for experience.

fire 550 experienced employees, hire 450 new grads after expensive lawsuits

doesn't seem very, uh, efficient to me

“How much time/money is it going to cost to train a bunch of new people when we had already-trained people in place?” asked another NOAA official, who requested anonymity

If they're all GS positions, the hiring process will take forever and has the lovely new trump loyalty bullshit baked in as a shit cherry on top.

Remember when Elon Musk was saving so much money?

“How did you vote in the last election?”

Next year they'll fire over half of them again just to show costs are being cut. And perhaps someone will yell "we hired them back to improve the climate, look what it got us".

Time to nogotiate good salaries. They must be desparate.

Ah, the famed efficiency of business and capitalism.

/s

Interviewer: Can you tell me what we do here exactly?

Surprising no one, as this was laid out in Project 2025.

I hope the rehired workers get a higher salary than they had before.

I hope they get a higher wage.