If you know about policies/orders blocking RIFed employees and stay silent, you are complicit
I keep hearing the same thing from multiple former NIH and FDA employees who were RIFed recently, and it doesn’t sit right.
Jobs that are basically the same ones they held for years are showing up again on USAJobs. They apply—and don’t even get referred. Not rejected after interviews… just not referred at all. At the same time, there are people inside these agencies saying they’ve been told not to hire back RIFed employees.
If that’s actually happening, it’s hard to see it as anything but unfair. The entire RIF was unfair and illegal as well.
And if you’re in or part of the hiring process and you know this is going on, staying quiet about it isn’t neutral, you’re part of it as well. These are people who gave years of their careers to public service. They deserve a fair shot, not to be quietly shut out. If you’ve seen this, heard it, or been told something along these lines—please speak up. Even anonymously. People deserve to know what’s really going on.