More federal employees who received layoff notices just before the government shutdown are looking to get their jobs back, on the grounds that Congress intended to reinstate them.
Recently laid-off employees at the General Services Administration are calling on the agency to rescind their reduction in force (RIF) notices, citing language in the recently passed continuing resolution that directed agencies to rescind the RIFs.
Attorneys at Gilbert Employment Law, in a letter sent to GSA’s leadership on Wednesday, said their clients, 35 GSA employees who were formally separated from the agency on Oct. 6, should be reinstated.
The GSA employees received their RIF notices on Sept. 24.
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The continuing resolution gave agencies until Nov. 18 to notify eligible employees that their RIF notices were being rescinded.
According to the letter, GSA has not sent any RIF rescission notices to the 35 GSA employees, “and has instead taken the position that they will not be reinstated.”
“This is a violation of the statute,” the attorneys wrote.
Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management directed agencies to reinstate employees “affected by a RIF notice issued between October 1, 2025 and November 12, 2025.”
“The clear intent of the Act was to reverse all RIF actions — including separations — taken during the shutdown, not just the issuance of RIF notices,” the attorneys wrote.
Federal News Network has reached out to GSA for comment.
Soon after Congress passed a spending bill last week to end the government shutdown, agencies and unions took a closer look at language ordering agencies to put some layoff notices on hold until the end of January 2026.
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The spending deal that Congress passed on Nov. 12 to end the government shutdown states that, “any reduction in force proposed, noticed, initiated, executed, implemented, or otherwise taken by an executive agency between October 1, 2025, and the date of enactment, shall have no force or effect.”
The Small Business Administration told dozens of recently laid-off employees this week that they could get their jobs back, but rescinded that offer a day later.
SBA sent RIF notices to 77 employees on Sept. 29, just before the government shutdown.
An SBA spokesperson told Federal News Network on Tuesday that the agency “has determined that the most recent continuing resolution signed into law does not apply to any RIFs executed by the SBA.”
“Therefore, the RIF in question, affecting 77 positions, remains,” the spokesperson said.
Federal News Network spoke with three SBA employees whose RIFs were briefly rescinded.
The employees said attorneys with the American Federation of Government Employees argued that SBA’s RIF notices were covered by the continuing resolution and should be rescinded, because the separation date for employees falls between Oct. 1 and Jan. 30.
One employee said they were told by their supervisor to still come into work on Wednesday, even though SBA’s most recent message told them the RIF notices were still in effect.
“There still seemed to be confusion,” the employee said.
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Other unions are also making the case for reinstatement.
The American Foreign Service Association said last week that its interpretation of the spending deal passed by Congress would block the State Department from moving forward with layoff notices it sent to more than 1,300 employees this summer.
“The shutdown just ended for now, but there were a ton of RIFs that happened during the shutdown,” AFGE General Counsel Thomas Dargon told AFSA members in a virtual meeting Thursday. “AFGE filed a lawsuit over that, and we’ve just been hard at work trying to fight back where we can in the courts.”
The spending package passed by Congress states that between the date of enactment and Jan. 30, 2026, “no federal funds may be used to initiate, carry out, implement or otherwise notice a reduction in force to reduce the number of employees within any department, agency or office of the federal government.”
“We understand that Congress intended for this language to apply to as many federal employees as possible, including those who received layoff notices from the State Department on July 11,” AFSA wrote.
AFSA wrote in a follow-up post that it is awaiting details “on how the continuing resolution will be implemented and what it means for Foreign Service members affected by the July layoffs at State.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com, or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29
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