{"id":480,"date":"2025-02-28T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/?p=480"},"modified":"2025-02-28T19:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T19:13:09","slug":"who-needs-weather-reports-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/28\/who-needs-weather-reports-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Who needs weather reports anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NOAA is slated for 880 layoffs of probationary workers. | Kendall Warner\/Virginian-Pilot\/Tribune News Service via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More layoffs have hit the federal government, this time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>, the United States\u2019s main weather forecaster and the world\u2019s premier research agency for the seas and the skies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CBS News reports that 880 employees<\/a> were cut across NOAA, about 7 percent of the workforce, including earth scientists, meteorologists, computer modelers, and space weather forecasters. It\u2019s already causing some functions \u2014 like weather balloon launches that provide raw data for weather models \u2014 to shut down. <\/p>\n

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I have confirmed that weather balloon launches for western Alaska have been halted due to the firings today.
For a little background, weather balloons are launched normally twice per day, more during a severe day, and we get most of our raw data from these launches. pic.twitter.com\/XPq4qH0UDu<\/a><\/p>\n

— Ahmad Bajjey (@AhmadBajjeyWx) February 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

What these employees had in common was that they were on probation. This is not a form of punishment but rather a quirk of the federal hiring system. By law<\/a>, federal civil service employees start new roles on a one-year probationary period, if not longer. This mainly means new hires, but also covers people who have been at an agency for years who were promoted or transferred to different roles. About one in 10 government workers<\/a> are on probation at any given time. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike most jobs, it kind of just gives your employer an opportunity to evaluate your performance,\u201d said Amelia Glymph, deputy chief of staff at the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for federal workers. \u201cThey don\u2019t have as many rights as full-time employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the probationary period, workers have the \u201cburden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest \u201d for the government to hire them, according to the US Merit Systems Protection Board<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou should view your probationary period as kind of an extension of the hiring process,\u201d said Robert Shriver, managing director for Democracy Forward\u2019s Civil Service Strong initiative, which aims to provide information and resources to government workers. \u201cI think any good federal manager can find out pretty quickly if somebody’s up for the job or not.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then why is the federal probation period so long, stretching up to two years? <\/p>\n

Part of the reason is that many federal jobs like law enforcement require extensive training. Simply learning to navigate the government bureaucracy can take weeks. Certain job functions can only be performed at specific times of the year, like when Congress is in session. Other roles require workers to produce reports, analyses, or investigations that take months to assemble and weeks to evaluate. <\/p>\n

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After nearly two weeks of overwhelming uncertainty, today it happened. I was fired from my dream of working at NOAA. I'm so sorry to everyone also affected.<\/p>\n

My job was to strengthen NOAA's use of machine learning and AI for subseasonal-to-decadal weather and climate prediction<\/p>\n

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) February 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Plus, once an employee graduates out of probation, they end up with strong job protections that make them harder to fire. This is to encourage civil service workers with specialized training and expertise to stay on the job. It also helps protect their roles from the whims of politicians.  <\/p>\n

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NOAA: One agency that explains what the government actually<\/em> does for you<\/a><\/h2>\n

Read our recent conversation<\/a> with Vox climate correspondent Umair Irfan<\/a> on how the nation\u2019s top climate and weather agency impacts the lives of every American. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But probationary employees have some protections too. They can\u2019t be dismissed without some kind of performance problem, and the Trump administration\u2019s mass firings may be illegal<\/a>, according to federal courts. However, the judicial process is moving slowly while thousands of federal employees have already cleared out their desks and have been locked out of their offices. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts are overwhelmed because there’s never been anything like this before, and I think that’s part of the [Trump administration\u2019s] strategy,\u201d Shriver said. <\/p>\n

And layoffs aren\u2019t the only way agencies are seeing their numbers dwindle. Vacancies are going unfilled, while existing staffers are taking buyouts alongside the normal attrition from retirements. The chaos across the government is making it a less appealing place to work, deterring prospective workers from applying. <\/p>\n

For an agency like NOAA that performs urgent research unmatched by the private sector, it adds up to a long-term squeeze of their workforce that will impair the safety of Americans and the health of the economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOAA is slated for 880 layoffs of probationary workers. | Kendall Warner\/Virginian-Pilot\/Tribune News Service via Getty Images More layoffs have hit the federal government, this time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States\u2019s main weather forecaster and the world\u2019s premier research agency for the seas and the skies.\u00a0 CBS News reports that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}