FDA To Replace Fired Employees With Contractors

CBS News reports:

The Food and Drug Administration is finalizing plans to replace some of the employees it laid off with contractors, three FDA officials tell CBS News, after steep cuts to the agency’s workforce disrupted drug and food safety inspections.

The contractors would effectively replace most of the work done by more than 50 laid-off federal employees who handled travel logistics and conducted oversight on spending for the agency’s inspectors, said two FDA officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The move appears to contradict what laid-off workers supporting FDA’s Office of Inspections and Investigations had been told in their layoff notices: that they were being let go because their work was “unnecessary or virtually identical to duties being performed elsewhere in the agency.”

Read the full article. Contract employees are typically not eligible for benefits such as health insurance.