As many programs on TV and radio – both humorous and not humorous – have noted, whether you call the state of the economy in “recession” or “slow-down”, people are generally unhappy with the financial state of the nation. Making things frustrating for the high-tech sectors of the economy critical to the 21st century, the Congress failed to pass bi-partisan appropriations for physical science research (physics, math, chemistry, computing) last year. As I’ve noted before, the Consolidate Appropriations Act of 2007 (or “omnibus bill”) passed under the bar of the President’s spending limits, and in doing so cut all federal science agencies (once you factor out the earmarks in the spending bill). As a result, national laboratories with already lean budgets has to cut some muscle from their budgets, laying off hundred of employees. Researchers, computing experts, communicators, engineers – I really don’t know an unaffected arm of the national lab staffs.
It was frustrating, not just because everything seemed in place to seize new scientific opportunities with matched funding, but also because we had to say goodbye to so many skilled workers at the labs. Retirements achieved some of these job losses, but in many cases people packed their offices and were gone, many years from retirement. It was scary to young researchers like me, who see moments like this as a sign of an illness in the United States, a cancer in the attitude of science and its relationship to the economy. At a time when strengthening the continuum of science – research, development, and application – is so important to building a new economic pillar under this nation, the leadership of this country caved under the pressure to spend money on things they could defend in one sentence to their constituents. It’s hard to explain to your voters why you spent a hundred million dollars on scientific question, but in a breath you can defend spending it on some wind energy.
So what’s happened with these layoffs at the labs? SLAC, where I work, laid off 125 people. Fermilab did rolling furloughs, where every employee must take unpaid leave for several weeks, staggering this through the year to avoid gaps in coverage in projects. Femilab has revised its estimates for layoffs later this year from 200 to 140 people – they made up the difference with 60 retirements [1]. Lawrence Livermore National Lab, which conducts both weapons research and research into security and energy technology, was already going to layoff about 500 people (announced before the omnibus) – they recently announced and additional 535 layoffs, given the new budget [2]. Argonne National Lab expected layoffs in January, but I’m having a hard time finding more recent expectations.
Weird times. Weirder still to be immersed in them.
[1] Fermilab lowers layoff estimates
[2] Hundreds more to be laid off at nuclear weapons lab
