Trump Administration Rehires Nuclear Weapons Specialists After Dismissal

washington - The US government, under President Donald Trump, reinstates nuclear weapons specialists after hasty layoffs at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Rehiring of Nuclear Weapons Specialists

The Trump administration is rehiring nuclear weapons specialists at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) following abrupt layoffs during a cost-cutting operation in Washington. The employees, responsible for managing radioactive materials globally and the national nuclear weapons stockpile at the NNSA, were part of a larger wave of layoffs at the Department of Energy, where the NNSA is housed, causing concern among security experts. Approximately three to four hundred NNSA employees were laid off, with an undisclosed number of layoffs being reversed.

The agency announced the swift reversal on Friday during a staff meeting. The NNSA is seeking to rehire the employees due to their expertise and knowledge of state secrets, according to Bloomberg sources. These layoffs raise additional concerns as these positions typically require high-level security clearances and trainings that can last eighteen months or longer, as stated by Jill Hruby, who served as NNSA administrator under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden.

A Department of Energy spokesperson disputes the number of affected employees, stating that fewer than fifty people were laid off. The department clarified that these staff members were temporary employees primarily performing administrative and support roles.

The layoffs are linked to the cost-cutting measures being implemented by Elon Musk's taskforce DOGE within the federal government, causing disruptions in government agencies. At the Small Business Administration, some employees were initially told they were being laid off earlier this week, then received a second message that they were retaining their jobs, only to be informed later that they were indeed being let go.

'The staff is in chaos,' said a source at the NNSA to Reuters. 'We want to focus on national security, but this is distracting us from our work.' The NNSA layoffs come at a time when nuclear power plants are at risk amid Russia's war on Ukraine, including Zaporizhia, Europe's largest nuclear facility.