Devex Pro Insider: USAID workers get RIF’ed off, and are philanthropists funding projects ‘to death’?

It’s one thing to get fired. It’s quite another to get fired two, three times from the exact same job — which, as we’ve reported, is what happened to many USAID personnel who received multiple termination notices. Many direct hires, however, have remained on paid administrative leave throughout their agency’s swiftly executed gutting. But those days are coming to an end.

Now that the Trump administration has submitted to Congress a plan to formally incorporate USAID into the State Department, RIFs are coming.

Those stand for reductions in force — government-speak for being let go — and they’re going to hit almost all remaining USAID employees by either July 1 or Sept. 2, 2025, by which time the administration will have fully wound down the agency’s operations. Employees have the option to stay on until then to help with the shutdown, in effect facilitating the end of their own jobs.

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