The US nuclear safety watchdog, which sacked hundreds of workers under orders from Donald Trump’s administration, is now trying to contact employees to rehire them.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been attempting to notify some employees who had been let go that they are now due to be reinstated.
But according to Sky News’ US partner NBC News, officials are struggling to find them because they do not have their new contact information.
In an email sent to employees at the NNSA on Friday, officials wrote: “The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel.”
The individuals had been fired on Thursday and lost access to their federal government email accounts.
Some 325 essential nuclear security workers at the NNSA, which manages the US nuclear weapons stockpile, were let go, according to the Reuters news agency.
The hulls of nuclear submarines at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state. Pic: San Francisco Chronicle/AP
The NNSA is part of the Department of Energy (DOE) which has laid off between 1,200 to 2,000 people among a staff of around 14,000.
The termination notices included the subject line: “Notification of Termination During Probationary/Trial Period.”
The letter said: “DOE finds that your further employment would not be in the public interest. For this reason, you are being removed from your position with DOE and the federal civil service effective today.”
The department laid off workers’ access to government-issued laptops and phones just after midnight Eastern Time (5am UK time) on Friday.
That left some unable to receive the notifications and they did not know they had been fired.
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Mass firings were carried out on Thursday and Friday across several federal departments, affecting thousands of probationary workers who had been on the job for less than two years.
The president has acted with unprecedented speed to cut large portions of the government, laying off staff and ending contracts.
But that speed has resulted in complications, including firing people agencies actually want to keep.
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“It’s been chaotic for the staff,” one source at NNSA told Reuters. “We just want to focus on national security stuff and this has distracted us from our work.”
In Washington state, at least a dozen workers at the Hanford nuclear site – a 1940s site for plutonium and uranium production for atomic bombs – were laid off, according to local Democratic Senator Patty Murray.
She said some were safety engineers who clean up and monitor the site.
“These reckless firings will slow down critical cleanup work and make workers less safe – trying to run Hanford with a skeleton crew is a recipe for disaster that could have irreversible impacts,” she added.
The losses at the NNSA occur at a time when nuclear power plants have been at risk in Russia’s war on Ukraine.