Are laid off fed workers and contractors having a hard time finding a new job?

[Anonymous]

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BLS and other data agencies were not spared, and a lot of people are worried about the quality of analysis going forward. Earlier this year BLS said it would stop collecting a few kinds of data and instead infer it, which has implications for accuracy.

So Statisticians and economists were fired as well?

My impression of this admin is that research and analysis is not governmental work — if it was actually valuable, someone would be paying someone to do the research. It doesn’t produce any concrete widget they can evaluate nor perform a service for a constituent, so it is considered worthless.

This applies across all agencies, look how they are eliminating analysis and research from DOD FFRDCs.

Gov shod DO things, not compile piles of reports that maybe no one looks at or values (because they aren’t willing to pay for them, right) — that’s the approach.

You are far too generous. They do not want accurate data or a neutal data source. For example, they do not want accurate inflation and unemployment numbers.

I know you were playing devil's advocate but to be very clear about data - a TON of private sector functions depend on data like the CPI. It is a "free" service that makes a lot of industries work. And so cutting it allows you to manipulate those industries more than you could otherwise.

If by any chance inflation data are being manipulated and it's discovered the Dow will go down 3k minimum per day for 5 straight days. It's a very big deal.

Hah, no in the modern era of global companies, inflation makes stock more valuable; as the dollars they are priced in drop in value.

Anyways, plummeting dollars and stocks, <shrug>, #crypto…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are laid off fed workers and contractors having a hard time finding a new job?

My guess is the private sector would benefit from hiring them because they bring a different experience and set of skills.

And it seems that some were not affected. I work as an analyst and use BLS data a lot in my job. I think statisticians and other data professionals were spared.

For example, I am sure any private form would love to hire a laid statistician from the BLS if they were available.

White collar jobs are shrinking across all industries.

Hopefully the demographic contraction aligns well enough to avoid the worst pain.

[Anonymous]

Soon to be laid off federal contractor here... and yes, the job market is awful. I'm looking at taking, minimum, a 25-30% cut in my salary.

[Anonymous]

Re: BLS, the stat agencies all lost a lot of people, but no RIFs or firing of probationaries so far to my knowledge.

A lot of people took DRP or VERA though, for a few reasons. A large cohort of people were close to retirement age. Loss of telework was also big, as many people had been mostly WFH before COVID, and Census in particular had been fully remote for nearly 5 years while their building was renovated. For BLS, a lot of people didn't want to change their commute to Suitland (Former HQ was next to Union Station).

Also, a bunch of senior leadership who deal with the Decennial Census left, presumably because they didn't want to go through a repeat of how the admin tried to politicize the 2020 Census.

The job market for statisticians and economists is OK, there are private sector employers that pay more money, and it's historically been easy for good people to pivot. The thing is, most people at the stat agencies don't really want those private sector jobs, they want to contribute to public statistics and knowledge. The other ways to do that (like academia or think tanks) are all hurting right now, and they depend heavily on stat agency data that might just go away if too many people leave. So people either left right away, or they are hunkered down and planning to ride it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re: BLS, the stat agencies all lost a lot of people, but no RIFs or firing of probationaries so far to my knowledge.

A lot of people took DRP or VERA though, for a few reasons. A large cohort of people were close to retirement age. Loss of telework was also big, as many people had been mostly WFH before COVID, and Census in particular had been fully remote for nearly 5 years while their building was renovated. For BLS, a lot of people didn't want to change their commute to Suitland (Former HQ was next to Union Station).

Also, a bunch of senior leadership who deal with the Decennial Census left, presumably because they didn't want to go through a repeat of how the admin tried to politicize the 2020 Census.

The job market for statisticians and economists is OK, there are private sector employers that pay more money, and it's historically been easy for good people to pivot. The thing is, most people at the stat agencies don't really want those private sector jobs, they want to contribute to public statistics and knowledge. The other ways to do that (like academia or think tanks) are all hurting right now, and they depend heavily on stat agency data that might just go away if too many people leave. So people either left right away, or they are hunkered down and planning to ride it out.

What private sector employers hire labor economists? I thought they mostly focused on macro/financial economists?

[Anonymous]

been laid off since March only had 3 interviews.....

[Anonymous]

[list]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I am hearing and seeing is that a lot of private industry doesn’t want to hire feds in advocacy, policy, and comms spaces… kind of an unfair ick factor or fear that the administration won’t want to work with them or take them seriously. It’s too bad.

No I don’t think this is the case. Maybe that’s what applicants are saying but a qualified person will be sought after. It’s just a tough market all around.

Trump directly targeted, by name, in Executive Orders, law firms that even used to employ certain hated feds. He tried to bar those firms from federal courthouses and definitely caused them to lose clients. That scares companies away from hiring feds in any role where the government would notice.

Now does it hurt job chances for me, a lowly nobody? It's probably not a big factor, no. But it might tip the scales in a tough market.

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: BLS, the stat agencies all lost a lot of people, but no RIFs or firing of probationaries so far to my knowledge.

A lot of people took DRP or VERA though, for a few reasons. A large cohort of people were close to retirement age. Loss of telework was also big, as many people had been mostly WFH before COVID, and Census in particular had been fully remote for nearly 5 years while their building was renovated. For BLS, a lot of people didn't want to change their commute to Suitland (Former HQ was next to Union Station).

Also, a bunch of senior leadership who deal with the Decennial Census left, presumably because they didn't want to go through a repeat of how the admin tried to politicize the 2020 Census.

The job market for statisticians and economists is OK, there are private sector employers that pay more money, and it's historically been easy for good people to pivot. The thing is, most people at the stat agencies don't really want those private sector jobs, they want to contribute to public statistics and knowledge. The other ways to do that (like academia or think tanks) are all hurting right now, and they depend heavily on stat agency data that might just go away if too many people leave. So people either left right away, or they are hunkered down and planning to ride it out.

What private sector employers hire labor economists? I thought they mostly focused on macro/financial economists?

Amazon and litigation consulting have a pretty long history of hiring labor economists. There's also general private sector demand, e.g., lots of corporate chief economist jobs don't require a specific field. And, there are random things like AI firms hiring labor economists to analyze the usage and impacts of their tech.

Private sector transitions have gotten a little harder over time though. Economists used to move into general "data science" jobs because there was a dearth of people with data analysis technical skills. Now there's a broader supply of people with those skills, so there's more competition for those jobs. Economists' specialty is causal inference, but lots of data science work cares only about prediction, not causality. Also, the typical economist is a self-taught programmer who's learned by reading problem sets and code from other self-taught programmers. That can make them uncompetitive for some types of roles against people with a stronger CS background.

[Anonymous]

Laid off contractor - I've had a fair number of interviews in the two months since I was let go but have not gotten a job yet. I try to be really politically neutral when explaining the reason I was laid off/am looking for a job.

What I'm really surprised is other people I know (feds & contractors) who like and repost certain things on LinkedIn that are very anti this current administration. Trump won the plurality of the vote and you have no idea what a hiring manager believes in the private sector.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BLS and other data agencies were not spared, and a lot of people are worried about the quality of analysis going forward. Earlier this year BLS said it would stop collecting a few kinds of data and instead infer it, which has implications for accuracy.

So Statisticians and economists were fired as well?

FHFA RIFed almost all of their economists and statisticians. The whole division was decimated in March.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: BLS, the stat agencies all lost a lot of people, but no RIFs or firing of probationaries so far to my knowledge.

A lot of people took DRP or VERA though, for a few reasons. A large cohort of people were close to retirement age. Loss of telework was also big, as many people had been mostly WFH before COVID, and Census in particular had been fully remote for nearly 5 years while their building was renovated. For BLS, a lot of people didn't want to change their commute to Suitland (Former HQ was next to Union Station).

Also, a bunch of senior leadership who deal with the Decennial Census left, presumably because they didn't want to go through a repeat of how the admin tried to politicize the 2020 Census.

The job market for statisticians and economists is OK, there are private sector employers that pay more money, and it's historically been easy for good people to pivot. The thing is, most people at the stat agencies don't really want those private sector jobs, they want to contribute to public statistics and knowledge. The other ways to do that (like academia or think tanks) are all hurting right now, and they depend heavily on stat agency data that might just go away if too many people leave. So people either left right away, or they are hunkered down and planning to ride it out.

What private sector employers hire labor economists? I thought they mostly focused on macro/financial economists?

Labor economists are the best econometricians. Their skills are very transferrable even if they weren't in technical role. I work for a consulting firm and we recently hired a guy who worked as labor economist (he only has a Bachelor's degree) for 10 years for the UK government. This guy is amazing. We do a lot of time series macroeconometrics. He was able to fit in and contribute right away.

[Anonymous]

Curious where all the statisticians that have left the govt are getting hired at?

[Anonymous]

I retired actually a year before the DOGE mess. I was 58 I always wanted to work part- time. I’ve applied for some very part-time easy jobs - think libraries, schools.

Nothing. Age discrimination is very real. It’s upsetting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BLS and other data agencies were not spared, and a lot of people are worried about the quality of analysis going forward. Earlier this year BLS said it would stop collecting a few kinds of data and instead infer it, which has implications for accuracy.

So Statisticians and economists were fired as well?

There is a shortage of enumerators which are people that gather pricing data, they are not statistician or economists.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Its abysmal