NASA’s JPL to cut 325 positions amid budget tightening

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Tuesday, Nov. 12, its second major round of layoff in nine months, cutting more than 300 jobs—approximately 5% of its workforce—to address budgetary constraints.

This latest round affects 325 positions across nearly all sectors, including technical, project, business and support, JPL said in a statement. Calling the cuts “painful but necessary adjustments”, JPL said the reductions are essentially to help it stay within its FY 2025 budget while continuing its work for NASA and the nation.

“Despite this being incredibly difficult for our community, this number is lower than projected a few months ago thanks in part to the hard work of so many people across JPL,” JPL Director Laurie Leshin wrote in a memo to employees early Tuesday announcing the layoffs, which will take effect Wednesday, Nov. 13.

The current cuts follows JPL’s layoff of 530 employees in February, which included 40 contractors, as part of a lab-wide cost-cutting measure.

The February layoff, which represented around 8% of JPL’s total workforce, was largely in response to a projected $300 million budget reduction from NASA—a 63% drop from the previous year– primarily impacting the Mars Sample Return mission, a program focused on bringing Martian samples to earth for analysis.

At the time, Congressional leaders, including Rep. Judy Chu, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, and Sen.-Elect Adam Schiff, urged the White House to reconsider the cuts before the finalization of the 2024 federal budget.

In a statement, Chu said she is “once again disappointed” by Tuesday’s announcement of further layoffs at JPL, which followed hundreds of cuts at the Laboratory earlier this year.

“My thoughts are with the dedicated, experienced workers who will be impacted,” Chu said. “I have been a steadfast champion of JPL as a national asset which has helped us accomplish some of the greatest feats in space and science for decades. Every layoff devastates the uniquely talented workers and their loved ones and threatens future scientific discoveries.”

She hoped that the layoffs will end with more stable funding, Chu said, adding that she is working with her California colleagues in Congress to secure the necessary funding in upcoming spending bills to fully support JPL.

Pasadena’s Mayor Victor Gordo also expressed disappointment over the layoffs on Tuesday.

“It’s very disappointing that NASA would allow these cuts to go forward,” Gordo said. “The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, its employees and supporters, are some of the top minds in science in the world.”

Gordo shared that he had reached out to JPL’s leaders upon receiving the news, and that he hoped this would be the “final cut”.

“I’m hopeful, as our leaders at JPL, that this will be the final cut,” he said. “And I’m all the more hopeful that going forward, NASA and leaders at the federal level will invest in our space programs. It’s the responsible thing to do, not just for JPL, but for the United States of America  and for the world.”

Gordo added that the City of Pasadena fully supports JPL and its employees, noting that he has offered JPL’s leadership assistance in contacting Congressional leaders to urge them to fully fund the Laboratory.

This week’s layoff comes after a townhall meeting where Leshin discussed ongoing funding challenges and their impacts on the Laboratory’s workforce, according to her. JPL has also explored multiple workforce scenarios, and collaborated with partners like NASA to minimize adverse effects on its capabilities and team.

But despite all these efforts, JPL needs to “make one further workforce reduction to meet the available funding for FY’25,” Leshin said.

“The workforce assessment conducted as part of this process has been both extensive and thorough, and although we can never have perfect insight into the future, I sincerely believe that after this action we will be at a more stable workforce level moving forward,” she said.

After the latest reduction, JPL will have around 5,500 regular employees.

“I believe this is a stable, supportable staffing level moving forward,” Leshin said. “While we can never be 100% certain of the future budget, we will be well positioned for the work ahead.”

JPL employees are instructed to work from home Wednesday, regardless of their telework status, Leshin added. They will be invited to attend a brief,virtual Lab-wide meeting with herself and Deputy Director Leslie Livesay at 9:30 a.m., where the two will outline the current status of the process and what employees can expect moving forward.

“This may not help much in this difficult moment, but I do want to be crystal clear with my thoughts and perspective,” Leshin said. “If we hold strong together, we will come through this, just as we have done during other turbulent times in JPL’s nearly 90-year history.”