The potential for layoffs in the defense contracting industry is taking center stage in the congressional showdown on how to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” but experts say that sequestration’s most immediate workplace cuts would be felt by civilian defense employees.
War funding and military personnel will be protected from sequestration — which is set to take effect Jan. 2 if Congress doesn’t take action — but as many as 108,000 civilian defense employees could be furloughed a few weeks after sequestration hits, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The furloughs could last through Sept. 30, 2013, the end of the fiscal year.
Civilian job losses in the Defense Department alone would amount to more than 12 percent of its workforce, which should be the immediate concern, Harrison said. “DOD civilian employees have a lot more to worry about than defense contractors do.”
Jacob Stokes, a research assistant at Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, agreed: “It’s just an arithmetic fact,” if you consider that sequestration calls for about 10 percent cuts across most accounts.
The across-the-board cuts of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, shared between defense and nondefense accounts, loom as a threat as long as lawmakers remain locked in a stalemate on how to reduce the national debt.
If sequestration happens, Harrison said the government would likely tell employees: “We want to keep you on our books, because we hope to take you back.” But nine-month furloughs with no guarantee of being placed back on DOD’s payroll would be just as damaging for many as layoffs, he said.