They aren't technically "Fired". It is called a RIF (Reduction in Force) and it gets downright bloodthirsty who gets to stay employed and where. It all comes down to seniority and past performance. You may end up keeping a job but you may need to take your buddies job to do it. That job may be 200 miles away too. They get very ugly and nasty.
As a Federal Employee I've seen this firsthand. We went through this with Obama and Trump. Obama went to "mission critical" staffing and refused to give us a pay raise for 3 years. Trump outright cut our compliment of staff, even though we were already short staffed. Basically, Reduction through attrition. They both were a big hit to staff morale. Many folks had worked hard to earn their stripes to promote, only to see the job they want get cut when a guy that currently held the position retired. When Trump cut our compliment by over 20% it was easier to say our institution was Fully Staffed or Over Staffed vs needing 30 bodies overnight. In the end, short staffing got some people killed in my field of work. Now, we have been hiring whoever we can get to fill our compliment because we are further short staffed than we were. We have adjusted to doing more with less because we HAVE to, doesn't matter we have lost 40+ jobs in the last few years. The problem now lies with the salary, we are paid 25-30% below state. Hard to compete for qualified individuals with pay like that. Some of us are too close to retirement to start over.
I agree some agencies are bloated, while others are not. I would like to see a more efficiently run agency, one that doesn't hemorrhage money. Do away with mandatory selections for contracts from minority, small, or vet owned businesses and go with the best option for the TAXPAYER and efficiency. It's crazy to see us overpay a small business to do the job a larger company could have done cheaper, better, and faster. Do away with mandatory government contracts, where we have to buy necessary items at inflated prices and allow agencies to purchase items locally or online which are often less expensive. Example: everyday standard office chair for $700-800 each via contract vs local staples has the same chair for less than 1/3 the price. Light bulbs for $50-60 each vs Walmart has them for a few bucks each. That alone across the FED would reduce expenditures exponentially. But we can't have that because some politician won't get his kick-back.
