JPL to lay off 8% of workforce

Updated 7:15 p.m. Eastern with comment from Rep. Chu.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Feb. 6 it will lay off 530 employees, about 8% of its staff, citing uncertainty about its budget for 2024.
In a statement, JPL said it would lay off about 530 employees, as well as 40 contractors, after exhausting other efforts to reduce costs given potential spending reductions for NASA and specifically for Mars Sample Return (MSR), a major program for the Pasadena, California-based center.
“After exhausting all other measures to adjust to a lower budget from NASA, and in the absence of a [fiscal year 2024] appropriation from Congress, we have had to make the difficult decision to reduce the JPL workforce through layoffs,” JPL stated.
The layoffs come a month after JPL laid off 100 contractors, many of whom had been working on MSR. Those layoffs were in response to a NASA decision in November to reduce spending on MSR while the agency...

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