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Aside from the benefits, one of the attractions of government work was always that it was usually a job for life. Obviously you can still be fired for cause, but there was no concern that you'd be caught up in a corporate downsizing or let go because a manager gives you a bad performance review. The actual buyout or deferred resignation plan or whatever you want to call it was a nothingburger; the concerning part of the letter that no one is talking about is the part at the end where it says:
The White House is trying to claim that the offer is nothing more than an opportunity for employees who don't want to go back to the office to resign and be given an 8 month exemption they can use to find new work. In light of that paragraph, however, it looks more like he's trying to give people the opportunity to get out now before he starts eliminating positions. There was already some indication that anyone who accepted the offer would be placed on paid administrative leave, so they wouldn't be getting any work out of them during the 8 months, though the letter didn't actually say this, so anyone resigning has to assume they would still have to work.
The upshot is that Federal employment no longer has the perceived stability that it once did. Forget side benefits like WFH, at least in the private sector mass layoffs only happen at occasional, unforeseen intervals when market conditions change. If the Federal government has the same firing power as the private sector, every job essentially becomes a four year contract position, subject to renewal at the whim of whatever administration takes power. As someone who has worked his fair share of contract positions, I can assure you they don't come cheap.
In the paradigm most of us have become accustomed to, this is true. It appears that we're entering a new reality, where AI is likely to make obsolete millions (if not hundreds of millions) of jobs globally. For all the handwringing about bullshit jobs, a great number of people may soon find they preferred having to act busy versus having nothing to do at all.
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