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Posted

So with all the federal hard and/or soft layoffs coming, the private sector workforce is going to be getting flooded with public sector workers looking for a paycheck.  This thread is to discuss the effects of that free from the political (or even moral/ethical) right or wrong of it.

According to this article, the federal government is the nation's single largest employer and it employs about 3 million civilians. 92% of those are white collar jobs.  DOGE has goals to cut 75% of them loose.  If that happens, 2.25 million white collar workers will be out of a job and looking for work.  So what's going to happen with the glut of workers and a vacuum of jobs?

Certain fields will be affected more than others.  Certain states will be more affected than others.  Discuss.

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Posted

But on the bright side, a flood of new entrants into the private sector will drive wages down and profits up.  That's a win for everyone!

Note: By everyone, I mean the Top 10%

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Posted
2 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Is there any estimate on how many government adjacent jobs would be lost with a huge cut to the federal workforce?

Yep, that too.  Government jobs are a force multiplier in many cases.  To continue with the engine analogy, in many cases they are like a direct injection of juice into the carburetor, making the engine rev.

Posted
31 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yep.

The myth of "government is just a bunch of people sucking on the taxpayer tit doing nothing" isn't just a myth, it's a flat-out lie.  Our broad government apparatus is, metaphorically, the oil that greases our national engine.  Let the following things fall apart: taxes/tax refunds, SS payments, Medicare/Medicaid processing, water infrastructure, streets and roads, emergency services, university financial aid apparatus, etc. etc.....and the engine will fucking seize up.

I've mentioned it before, but through my work, I have gotten to know a lot of public sector employees in the public utility business -- water, sewer, electricity.  Those people uniformly 1) are paid less than they would be in the private sector, 2) genuinely give a shit about their job and their mission, and bust their asses to make it happen (often with limited resources), and 3) are actually damned good at what they do.

But to the "government bad!" people, they are all the mythical lazy clerk at the DMV, talking with his pals and mishandling paperwork while the line for a drivers license renewal goes out the door.  It's a story that's been told so often, and so across the board, that the lie has swallowed the truth.  Sure, there are shitty, lazy government employees....just like there are shitty, lazy employees EVERYWHERE.  My guess is that the ratio is about the same.  And sure, there are pointless/wasteful elements of government programs (a $500k grant to study sloths with erectile dysfunction or some shit), just like EVERY private enterprise of any size has wasteful processes and programs ("hey boss....why do we have 10 pallets of copy paper delivered every month?  I looked, and that was an error input in the system 10 years ago, and nobody has bothered to question it.")

All of these people hating on "the government" and "the administrative state" also yearn for the America of 1945-1985.....which was largely made possible by the very things they now hate.  Just fucking stupid.

 

10 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Is there any estimate on how many government adjacent jobs would be lost with a huge cut to the federal workforce?

I don't know, but someone I know who works for the state of Colorado is on a project that is paid for in part by federal funding.  He's slightly concerned.  Colorado should have the money to foot the bill without federal assistance (revenue from legal weed surpassed revenue from alcohol long ago).

I wonder if some states where "government" isn't a dirty word will look to expand their state services and wind up subsuming some of these workers.

Posted

I don’t see a lot of the overlap. Most of the private sector jobs are non union and the demands/stressors are very different. 
 

I can see where state/local jobs get flooded before a lot of private sector ones do. 

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Posted
31 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

But on the bright side, a flood of new entrants into the private sector will drive wages down and profits up.  That's a win for everyone!

Note: By everyone, I mean the Top 10%

Top 2-10% won’t be benefiting

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Posted
14 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

I don’t see a lot of the overlap. Most of the private sector jobs are non union and the demands/stressors are very different. 
 

I can see where state/local jobs get flooded before a lot of private sector ones do. 

You don't think the red states will begin to purge the public sector too?  I could definitely see hot wheels going in that direction.

Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The number of posters here who are opposed to auditing/fine-tooth-combing federal spending is probably zero.

It's just that sane people know that the way you do so is not "nuke everything and give 19 year old psychopaths full access to top secret materials."

I don't disagree, but the "should we" and "how" debates are kind of pointless now.  The gutting of the federal government and release of public sector workers into the market is happening, and it's not going to be a surgical procedure.  It's gonna be a leg amputation with a sledge hammer and no painkillers.  So... what are going to be the effects of that?  Your previous post discussed that better.

Edited by Goredho
Posted (edited)

Folks have no clue how many problems this is going to cause.  It's going to effect things they never even thought of.  You don't break systems people depend on and find out about all the problems after the fact.  This is exactly how the Nazi broke Twitter in the beginning.

Edited by kevwun
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Posted
Just now, kevwun said:

Folks have no clue how many problems this is going to cause.  It's going to be things they never thought of.

There will absolutely be a butterfly effect.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

The number of posters here who are opposed to auditing/fine-tooth-combing federal spending is probably zero.

It's just that sane people know that the way you do so is not "nuke everything and give 19 year old psychopaths full access to top secret materials."

Even in the private sector Bobs are sent in to trim the fat with feedback from management. Consultants are brought in for providing strategic and tactical changes.

This is not that.

2 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Folks have no clue how many problems this is going to cause.  It's going to effect things they never even thought of.

Unintended consequences.

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Posted
32 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yep, that too.  Government jobs are a force multiplier in many cases.  To continue with the engine analogy, in many cases they are like a direct injection of juice into the carburetor, making the engine rev.

Just tell the small business owners who are losing their livelihood (because government workers are no longer coming in to the little lunch deli around the corner) that they are experiencing the temporary pain that Trump talked about on the way to making the country great again.  

I mean, great again after they lose absolutely everything.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

You don't think the red states will begin to purge the public sector too?  I could definitely see hot wheels going in that direction.

Maybe but usually folks that take public sector jobs aren’t always an exact match for private sector work. Especially at publicly traded company with pressures of every 13 weeks being “most important 13 weeks of life” type BS. 

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Posted
5 minutes ago, F250 said:

Even in the private sector Bobs are sent in to trim the fat with feedback from management. Consultants are brought in for providing strategic and tactical changes.

This is not that.

IMG_4110.thumb.webp.87b511e675abf726de4133ff1d4ac1b9.webp

“By any chance, do you happen to have a list of your colleagues who are not white male Christians?”

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Posted

It's batshit crazy. When you can convince already stupid people to focus their hate on immigrants and gays, you can take away all their rights and services, and they'll still re-elect you.

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Posted

Some of these folks will have a skillset that will be attractive in the private sector.  Many won't.  One of the major assets a government employee can carry with them to the private sector is internal knowledge of how the sausage is made, which can benefit a private sector company looking to work with a specific department/agency.  If that department is now gutted and operates completely differently, or not at all, that aspect of their value has disappeared.   I feel really badly for folks going through this, many of whom have dedicated their lives to a career in government.  I have a number of buddies who are NLRB lawyers.  Once the board shift is done, most expect to be out of a job.   Some of them will land on their feet at private firms with a labor relations group, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of litigation in the coming years as the feds shift heavily to employer-friendly regulations. Still, many of them will be starting from scratch.  Looking for a new legal job in a new practice area in your 50s is not a position I envy.

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Posted
1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

If they cut 75% of the government workforce, millions of people hitting the job market will be the least of our worries, as systems start failing, people stop getting their SS checks, hospitals stop getting paid through Medicare/Medicaid/VA, and a whole host of other things.

Theyll build an AI to handle all of that. They will name it skynet.   It will be fine. 

Posted (edited)

Gonna give away 100 years of gains in rights and quality of life in  a matter of weeks.  Hello 2nd Gilded Age.

Edited by kevwun
Posted
14 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Just tell the small business owners who are losing their livelihood (because government workers are no longer coming in to the little lunch deli around the corner) that they are experiencing the temporary pain that Trump talked about on the way to making the country great again.  

I mean, great again after they lose absolutely everything.

 

I thought remote work and $20 minimum wage already killed those jobs.

Posted
1 minute ago, bschoolprof said:

there is 0.0% chance that anything close to 75% of the federal workforce will be cut.  I wonder how some of you have real life jobs.  

Given that is Doge's stated goal, there is 0.0% chance that this will be anything other than the most massive layoff in our country's history.  Will they wind up hitting the mark or exceeding it?  Probably not, they are a government organization after all and we all know they can't do anything.  But its still going to be disruptive to a lot of people's daily lives.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

Maybe but usually folks that take public sector jobs aren’t always an exact match for private sector work. Especially at publicly traded company with pressures of every 13 weeks being “most important 13 weeks of life” type BS. 

True to an extent, but they also deal with different pressures: the guy running your local water utility is getting calls from citizen X, and council member Y, bitching at him about why rates are going up, and having to explain that the 70 year old infrastructure that they haven't maintained because they don't want to spend any money is now leaking like a sieve, and all that deferred maintenance is coming home to roost.  And if you want clean water without a boil water notice every other day, you have to have pipes with integrity that don't lose pressure.  And the council member yells at him because the election is in three months, and he wants rates to stay the same until after the election, and can't you replace those massive pipes with the city crews we have instead of a contractor, and having to explain to the dingbat council member that no, working with 24 inch pipe requires certain specific and expensive equipment that the city simply doesn't have, etc.

The pressures are different, but they are pressures nonetheless.

Again, the myth that our government is just a bloated tick that feeds off the people and provides nothing is a myth and a lie.  That doesn't mean that there aren't wasteful programs, there aren't shitty and unproductive employees, etc.  What it means that even if you had a perfect eye and found every such instance and eliminated them....you'd find that you trimmed something like 10% of our overall spending, net.  And I say "net" because in fact, you'd ALSO find things like "fuck, we've deferred maintenance on all our bridges for 50 years....we actually desperately need to INCREASE spending on those."

Practically speaking, what will happen to a lot of these employees?  They will end up in the private sector in the long-run....working for outfits that end up with government contracts to perform the tasks that the government employees were doing previously.  Bottom line, today we spend $10 million on the government budget for replacing water pipes with gov't employees.  We'll eliminate that department.  Then, in short order, when our water pipes start failing and we have boil water notices every week, we'll hire a government contractor to do all that work....for $13 million.  So, we'll end up doing the exact same stuff....except with a profit margin built in.  Winning for the top 1% who own Mega Pipe Contractor Inc., losing for we the people.  Oh, and maybe winning for that former gov't employee who just shifted his job from the public to private sector and got a 20% pay bump.

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Posted

Sure they can cut a ton of people, they have already given notice to US AID; and yes there are programs that are crap, but US AID also is the US exerting it presence into developing countries. And when we stop providing assistance, then the China, India, Russia would but can't, will step in and gain or expand their foothold/influence around the globe. Also, note that US AID is also an agency that provides cover to US operatives (CIA, FBI, etc) - allegedly.

So if President TrumpMusk can pull the plug on that without even looking at any consequences; then they will damn near certainly layoff large groups that they don't understand what it is that they do. Musk was on the edge of bankruptcy several times at Tesla, and pulled a rabbit out of his hat; IMO he is way out of his league trying to fix the problems in US gov't organizations. Trump gave him this task as a reward for donating over $250 million to the campaign.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

True to an extent, but they also deal with different pressures: the guy running your local water utility is getting calls from citizen X, and council member Y, bitching at him about why rates are going up, and having to explain that the 70 year old infrastructure that they haven't maintained because they don't want to spend any money is now leaking like a sieve, and all that deferred maintenance is coming home to roost.  And if you want clean water without a boil water notice every other day, you have to have pipes with integrity that don't lose pressure.  And the council member yells at him because the election is in three months, and he wants rates to stay the same until after the election, and can't you replace those massive pipes with the city crews we have instead of a contractor, and having to explain to the dingbat council member that no, working with 24 inch pipe requires certain specific and expensive equipment that the city simply doesn't have, etc.

The pressures are different, but they are pressures nonetheless.

Again, the myth that our government is just a bloated tick that feeds off the people and provides nothing is a myth and a lie.  That doesn't mean that there aren't wasteful programs, there aren't shitty and unproductive employees, etc.  What it means that even if you had a perfect eye and found every such instance and eliminated them....you'd find that you trimmed something like 10% of our overall spending, net.  And I say "net" because in fact, you'd ALSO find things like "fuck, we've deferred maintenance on all our bridges for 50 years....we actually desperately need to INCREASE spending on those."

Practically speaking, what will happen to a lot of these employees?  They will end up in the private sector in the long-run....working for outfits that end up with government contracts to perform the tasks that the government employees were doing previously.  Bottom line, today we spend $10 million on the government budget for replacing water pipes with gov't employees.  We'll eliminate that department.  Then, in short order, when our water pipes start failing and we have boil water notices every week, we'll hire a government contractor to do all that work....for $13 million.  So, we'll end up doing the exact same stuff....except with a profit margin built in.  Winning for the top 1% who own Mega Pipe Contractor Inc., losing for we the people.  Oh, and maybe winning for that former gov't employee who just shifted his job from the public to private sector and got a 20% pay bump.

I would argue that is not “flooding the private sector” and taking jobs but rather repurposing roles in a mew company/contract as to your point a proxy for public sector. 
 

I just don’t see bulk of these current federal employees jumping to a private company that isn’t focused on working with federal government. 
 

I see more along the lines of point you are making. Get rid of TSA eg then all of those folks just get hired by airline or airport directly as their version of TSA. 

Posted
18 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

there is 0.0% chance that anything close to 75% of the federal workforce will be cut.  I wonder how some of you have real life jobs.  

Who's going to stop them?

Posted
Just now, kevwun said:

Who's going to stop them?

Trump has already shown he will pause or backoff if he's given a reason to do it and a path that includes saving face.  If a republican governor calls the White House and says this or that is going to harm too many people that vote the right way, Elon's efforts will be adjusted.  Like, I seriously doubt Trump would allow the VA to be gutted and made worse.  He wouldn't want to damage support among the military.

So I doubt 75% of government employees are cut.  Maybe it's 65%, maybe it's 30%.  If it's 20 percent, it will be 600,000 people and an order of magnitude larger than the largest layoff in our nation's history.  They don't have to get anywhere near 75% to create a massive amount of jobless Americans.

Posted
50 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

You don't think the red states will begin to purge the public sector too?  I could definitely see hot wheels going in that direction.

I'm not sure I'd notice a difference at the Railroad Commission. 

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Goredho said:

So I doubt 75% of government employees are cut.  Maybe it's 65%, maybe it's 30%.  If it's 20 percent, it will be 600,000 people and an order of magnitude larger than the largest layoff in our nation's history.  They don't have to get anywhere near 75% to create a massive amount of jobless Americans.

I agree it'll be somewhere south of 75%, but still a shitload of people.  And I'm by no means an expert in the jobs market, but just this morning NPR reported that the jobs report to end December 2024 showed a pretty low unemployment rate, so I think the private sector is going to be hard pressed to absorb these former-federal workers. 

And yes, getting those folks new jobs is one thing, keeping essential federal services that the MAGAs take for granted is a whole other.  It's going to be like the fucking tariffs, which all the MAGAs cheer on, until a farmer in Iowa or a steel plant manager in Pennsylvania feels the pain.

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Posted
31 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

I would argue that is not “flooding the private sector” and taking jobs but rather repurposing roles in a mew company/contract as to your point a proxy for public sector. 
 

I just don’t see bulk of these current federal employees jumping to a private company that isn’t focused on working with federal government. 
 

I see more along the lines of point you are making. Get rid of TSA eg then all of those folks just get hired by airline or airport directly as their version of TSA. 

Some will get replaced. A lot wont' There are two thigns going on here. When we talk Federal we overlook all the companies and skills that are really part of it. USAID for example. Chemonics, DAI, Dexis all rely on USAID. They were built to implement USAID's projects. So from C-Suite (they will be fine) to Janitors (they will be fine) are humans who will loose their current job. The mid level are screwed. They are "experts" in specilized fields. Agricuture logistics, medical supply chains, etc. they do not fit elsewhere at the same level. So they will take a step down if they can find someone who needs them. That leads to a second issue. Age. Companies will hire younger for cheaper and train up. It is natural and normal.

This will apply across the federal sector directly as well. Who needs that many healthcare admins if healthcare is cut/authomated? A lot of this is already being automated.

Then the third impact. We pretend that all is remote work. Yes, a lot is, but there are still a shit ton of offices staffed. USAID was one of them. So laters to the Vietnamese cafe on the first floor. Courtyard near by? Yep they are fucked and will see a decrease. And as pointed out this won't be just DC. near the FEMA offices in Atlanta are a ton of hotels that cater to it.

So where do ALL these people go?

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Posted
6 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I agree it'll be somewhere south of 75%, but still a shitload of people.  And I'm by no means an expert in the jobs market, but just this morning NPR reported that the jobs report to end December 2024 showed a pretty low unemployment rate, so I think the private sector is going to be hard pressed to absorb these former-federal workers. 

And yes, getting those folks new jobs is one thing, keeping essential federal services that the MAGAs take for granted is a whole other.  It's going to be like the fucking tariffs, which all the MAGAs cheer on, until a farmer in Iowa or a steel plant manager in Pennsylvania feels the pain.

I watch the federal sector (international yeah) pretty close. It was already hard for people above 40 to get jobs. Lots of jobs out there, but not white collar. Amazon warehouse is hiring. HEB needs more people to stock carts for curbside. Managers? Nope.

it was happening in the government support components as well. Lot of companies think AI can do it all. So they hire less. I was just picked up by a large to do analysis direct for them via consult. I made the jump and happy I did. Shit ton of friends are calling up saying where can they find work. Smart people with damn good records. But there are already plenty of HR specialists, etc.

Posted
9 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Some will get replaced. A lot wont' There are two thigns going on here. When we talk Federal we overlook all the companies and skills that are really part of it. USAID for example. Chemonics, DAI, Dexis all rely on USAID. They were built to implement USAID's projects. So from C-Suite (they will be fine) to Janitors (they will be fine) are humans who will loose their current job. The mid level are screwed. They are "experts" in specilized fields. Agricuture logistics, medical supply chains, etc. they do not fit elsewhere at the same level. So they will take a step down if they can find someone who needs them. That leads to a second issue. Age. Companies will hire younger for cheaper and train up. It is natural and normal.

This will apply across the federal sector directly as well. Who needs that many healthcare admins if healthcare is cut/authomated? A lot of this is already being automated.

Then the third impact. We pretend that all is remote work. Yes, a lot is, but there are still a shit ton of offices staffed. USAID was one of them. So laters to the Vietnamese cafe on the first floor. Courtyard near by? Yep they are fucked and will see a decrease. And as pointed out this won't be just DC. near the FEMA offices in Atlanta are a ton of hotels that cater to it.

So where do ALL these people go?

I agree. Layoffs suck. Workday eg announced layoffs of 8.5% of their employees, around 1800 people. Same principles apply: the coffe shop employees, the dry cleaners etc etc that have supported these folks are in jeopardy. 
 

The assertion though that federal employees will be able to jump in whole cloth and take existing private sector jobs is one I am pushing back on. Some might, i just don’t see it at scale. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, BrazilHorn said:

I agree. Layoffs suck. Workday eg announced layoffs of 8.5% of their employees, around 1800 people. Same principles apply: the coffe shop employees, the dry cleaners etc etc that have supported these folks are in jeopardy. 
 

The assertion though that federal employees will be able to jump in whole cloth and take existing private sector jobs is one I am pushing back on. Some might, i just don’t see it at scale. 

For the 10K US employees of USAID there are 80K support elements. Companies that support down to the docks that load aid.

This company is toast.

Chemonics International Inc. is a private for-profit international development firm based in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1975 by Thurston F. (Tony) Teele as a subsidiary of Erly Industries. The employee-owned company offers a variety of services globally and has been awarded over $17 billion in USAID contracts alone, from 2008 to 2024[10][11][12]. As of 2019 the company has approximately 5,000 employees in 100 countries.

How would this dude survive if his county does not need paper?

image.jpeg.84b3a9760808810287a8dee9138737a3.jpeg

Posted
It will also be a 1,000 dumb things like now it takes 6 months to renew your passport, if you're lucky.

This is a big deal for flight crews that have more than one passport to carry visas for certain countries. Shithole countries. Maybe one of Penelope's trips cancels because nobody's legal. At least he's not a black woman, amirite.

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