Practicing Resilience at a Downsized JPL

JPL implemented its third round of layoffs in 2024 on November 13, cutting 325 employees—roughly 5% of its workforce. This latest reduction follows earlier waves: 100 contractors in January and 570 additional employees and contractors in February. As a result, JPL’s workforce now stands at approximately 5,500 employees. These job cuts stem from a funding crisis centered around the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a flagship NASA initiative designed to retrieve and analyze Martian rock and dust samples on Earth. Despite $822 million allocated to the project last year, NASA was directed to prepare for a drastic reduction in fiscal year 2024, with just $300 million allocated compared to the original $949 million requested. To better understand the impact of these compounding layoffs, The Tech spoke with JPLers both current and former about their experiences following an exceptionally turbulent year.

The reductions, numerous and obscure as they were, spurred an extended paranoia among JPLers. “First round of layoffs, people had questions about What were the whole criteria? For people who were chosen? People who were selected? It seemed like such a random sampling of people,” shared a former Administrative Liaison. “You had people who were there in lab a year, and veterans who there twenty-five, thirty-five years. You had engineers, you had staff assistants.” Partly owing to this ambiguity, they were anything but an underachiever. “I did what I could to prove that I was essential, but something in their selection process, I guess, just found me. What that criteria was? No one knows.”

The environmental shift was stark. “It was like going to a different JPL,” said a former Operation Systems Engineer. “Back in February, there was this immediate sense of shock, frustration, and anger at how everything had been done. Since then, people have been very vocal about how they were upset and disappointed, hoping that if this happened again, it would be handled differently. But it was done the exact same way.”

Her account underscores broader concerns about transparency in JPL governance. Many employees—including those who remained at the Lab—were disheartened by the unsentimental tenor of the layoffs, and the inequity in whose voice got heard. “The Director said that leadership of large projects was involved in those decisions, but the leadership of the project I worked on was not,” a team lead commented. “And to lay people off by email… it felt very impersonal.”

For staff both current and former, the layoffs further signaled a troubling shift toward a more corporate culture. “When I first came on at JPL, it was a much different environment; it was far from the corporate setting that we came from in private industries. Now, it’s just the direction they’re taking,” said the Liaison. The adoption by leadership of an “industry standard” approach toward the firings was especially baffling: “I chose to come to JPL because I didn’t want to work for [Amazon or Google],” said the OS engineer. “Those companies are for profit. I believe in the common good and the good of the public. … JPL’s not for-profit. It doesn’t make any sense why there needs to be an ‘industry standard’ way of doing things. I decided to go with JPL because I believed in the people and the missions, and I was shocked this was how it happened. It felt like we were a private company all of a sudden.”

The loss of institutional knowledge has already impacted project operations. “You play off people who used to do that work, and you don’t have enough people to get the work done,” explained the aforementioned team lead (whose project lost a member). “You’re struggling to compensate for that in the short term by modifying operational processes and standing down other things you otherwise wouldn’t have to.” And no lost team member is so easily replaced. “While you still have people who have the knowledge and expertise of what needs to get done, you don’t have enough people who can get the work done accomplished on the level that we’re struggling with.”

Indeed, many JPLers found themselves abruptly severed after providing decades of service. One such employee, having served the Lab for over 25 years, reflected: “It was a great place to work. I didn’t expect to stay as long as I did, but my career evolved organically. So it’s still a gut punch. I knew layoffs were coming; I just didn’t expect to be caught up in them.”

And the damage extends beyond research and engineering projects. The Lab’s K-12 outreach office—a cornerstone of NASA’s public engagement efforts—was also eliminated in the latest cuts. “At every other NASA Center, that’s one of the highest priorities,” the ex-OS engineer lamented. “Educating the general public and children about NASA and science is how a lot of people get into STEM.” They stressed that this loss could have long-term consequences for both public support and future recruitment efforts.

Accordingly, they framed the layoffs as a crucial opportunity for reflecting on the institute’s purpose: “I really think that there’s still hope that NASA could be what it used to be. … I think 60 years ago, there was this massive support for NASA because it was coming from the highest levels. There was this sense of national unity and awe. Landing a man on the moon—that’s just been part of our cultural vernacular for years now. That was powerful. And I think that legacy is dying. I don’t think it means that NASA needs to go back to the Moon to get it, but there needs to be some re-evaluation: What does NASA mean where we’re at in the world? And how do we start to inspire people again?”

A silver lining, these reductions also flourished forth hope and perseverance. Albert “Joey” Jefferson, a flight systems engineer, attested to the collaborative spirit that emerged in their wake: “We lost two members of my flight team and went from five to two people. But what’s remarkable is how others across the Lab have stepped in to help. … Given the sparseness of it all, seeing everybody come together and be selfless during this time is one of the positives,” Jefferson said. “Out of the chaos is going to come a new JPL and a new life that hopefully will be just as strong, if not stronger, than before.”

The myriad challenges of so many rounds of sudden downsizing remain. The loss of critical expertise and erosion of trust present in the fallout could significantly hinder the Lab’s ability to deliver on high-stakes missions like MSR—the very project that prompted these reductions in the first place. At the same time, the tenacity and passion of those who remain inspire hope. Whether that hope can be fully realized will depend on how leadership addresses growing cultural concerns in the months ahead. In Jefferson’s words, it’s “more than just dollar signs.”

It always has been.