FCC Prepares for Mass Layoffs Amid Looming Government Shutdown

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2025 – The clock is ticking toward a federal government shutdown, with funding set to lapse Oct. 1, first thing Wednesday morning, and little sign of a clear path to avoid it.

While shutdown threats are not uncommon in Washington, this one could prove more consequential: The White House directed agencies to prepare for permanent layoffs – not just temporary furloughs – if the government closes next week.

At the Federal Communications Commission, officials were already preparing to scale back.

“We’re planning now for the government shutdown that affects everybody,” FCC Chief of Staff Scott Delacourt said Wednesday at a Media Institute luncheon.

In a memo released Thursday and publicized by PBS, the White House Office of Management and Budget told agencies that if funding lapses Oct. 1, they must go beyond temporary furloughs and issue permanent layoff notices, known as Reduction in Force, or RIF, actions.

The directive would apply to employees working on programs that lose discretionary funding, lack an alternative funding stream such as mandatory appropriations, or are deemed “not consistent with the President’s priorities,” according to the OMB memo.

Yet, even as the OMB has directed agencies to prepare for permanent layoffs, its website publicizing shutdown contingency plans remained blank as of Friday afternoon, offering little insight into how agencies would act.

Previous shutdown plan called for sidelining 88% of FCC workforce

Still, the FCC did make similar preparations in March, issuing a plan for an “orderly shutdown” in the event of lapsed appropriations. That document makes clear that the FCC would furlough roughly 88 percent of its workforce, while retaining only about 12 percent.

At the time, that meant keeping 171 employees out of 1,476. Those retained include:

• The Chairman, three Commissioners, and the Inspector General (all presidential appointees).
• Roughly 46 staff in the Office of Inspector General, supported by carryover funds.
• About 36 employees tied to spectrum auctions, which are funded outside annual appropriations.
• Around 25 staff to protect life and property, including those at the FCC’s Operations Center, the High Frequency Direction Finding Center, and in outage response.
• A handful of employees tasked with certifying Universal Service Fund and Telecommunications Relay Service disbursements.
• Four staff focused on preparation for the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference.

Certain activities would cease altogether during a shutdown: consumer complaint and inquiry lines would go unanswered; consumer protection enforcement and competition oversight would halt; licensing services across broadcast, wireless, and wireline would stop; spectrum management and new opportunities for competitive services would be suspended; and approvals needed to bring new devices to market would freeze.

Whatever plan the FCC pushes forward in response to OMB’s memo could reshape the FCC’s operations dramatically.

While the March plan envisioned putting most employees on unpaid leave until funding resumed, the OMB guidance instructed agencies, once the shutdown ends, to revise their reduction-in-force plans “as needed to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions.”

“With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out,” the memo states.

How the FCC will define “statutory functions” remains to be seen, leaving open the prospect that a substantial number of employees could be walking out the door at 45 L Street NE for good on Oct. 1.

Under its March plan, staff were allotted four hours to secure files, cancel travel and meetings, and set out-of-office messages before being formally furloughed.

Already ‘brain drain’ concerns at the agency

The FCC has already been wrestling with attrition in its workforce. Between a wave of early retirements, a government-wide buyout program and downsizing initiatives led by the Department of Government Efficiency, the agency has seen many staff departures. So far, the FCC has been reluctant to disclose how many employees left as a result of the government buyout program or DOGE.

At the FCC’s March 28 meeting, an unusually long list of retirements prompted Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez to warn of a potential “brain drain.”

“I am very concerned about the brain drain that you are seeing in these retirements, and that we will be seeing in the upcoming months, because of all the actions of this administration. We are losing tremendously talented staff,” Gomez said at the time. “It is going to affect us and our ability to do our job to protect the public interest, to protect consumers, to protect competition, and to ensure new and innovative services get to market.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr dismissed those concerns, saying transitions were a natural part of agency life and that with roughly 1,500 staff on board at the time, “we still have a lot of talent in the building.”

The March 2025 plan marked a leaner approach than the FCC’s 2023 contingencyunder former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

That earlier plan envisioned retaining about 16 percent of staff, including employees supporting broadband data collection, mapping, and pandemic-era relief programs like the Emergency Connectivity Fund. The FCC typically revamps its shutdown contingency plans about every two years.

House passes stopgap, Senate deadlocks

On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune insisted Friday that a shutdown was still “avoidable” if Democrats “dial back” their demands on health care subsidies and policy reversals.

The House has already passed a seven-week stopgap funding bill to keep the government open through mid-November and was not scheduled to return until Oct. 1, after the deadline. Senators rejected the House measure, and a competing proposal from Senate Democrats also fell short of the 60 votes needed.

That leaves the Senate to act when it gavels in at 3 p.m. Monday, giving lawmakers little more than 24 hours to avert a shutdown before funding lapses 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1.