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The National Institute of Standards and Technology Braces for Mass Firings
Approximately 500 NIST staffers, including at least three lab directors, are expected to lose their jobs at the safety-standards agency as part of the ongoing DOGE purge, sources tell WIRED.
Sweeping layoffs architected by the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency may be coming as soon as this week at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory agency responsible for establishing benchmarks that ensure everything from beauty products to quantum computers are safe and reliable. Earlier this month, California representative Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the Republican-controlled House science committee, and her colleagues sent letters to the heads of several agencies including NIST and National Aeronautics and Space Administration demanding transparency about DOGE activities. Project 2025, an informal plan for the Trump administration crafted by the Heritage Foundation, an influential right-leaning think tank, called for consolidating the research work currently spread across NIST and other agencies and ensuring that it “serves the national interest in a concrete way in line with conservative principles.”
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