Watch as USA's Workforce Evaporates
Layoff anxiety top risk to space shuttle, Florida Today
“NASA’s shuttle program in 2006 employed 14,000 contractors and 1,800 civil servants in eight states and Washington, D.C. By November 2009, the work force had been cut to 10,300 contractors and 1,200 civil servants. The contractor work force at the end of May: 8,741. One by one, the 5,158 technicians, engineers and managers who still work for United Space Alliance at KSC recently were called in by supervisors and given notice. Some 902 were told they could be out of a job by Oct. 1. Another 3,256 people will lose their jobs by April if NASA’s last scheduled shuttle mission is launched as planned on Feb. 26. The addition of one extra mission proposed by NASA would only slow the company’s planned drop to 1,000 to late July or August.”