The National Institutes of Health has allowed contract employees’ work orders to lapse since the Trump administration took office in January, three sources familiar with the agency’s work told NOTUS, effectively laying off members of a group that comprises nearly half of the NIH’s workforce.
The number of workers whose contracts haven’t been renewed is unclear, but the sources told NOTUS that the cuts have already made an impact on the agency.
“Out of four or five scientists I had, we are down to two, soon to one,” said a contract employee at the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The VRC employee said they knew about 10 total people whose contracts with the NIH had recently expired and were not renewed. They didn’t know of any contract employees who had successfully renewed their contracts since January.
Another NIH employee, also speaking anonymously, said they knew of five such employees whose contracts had expired. Two of those five later had their contracts renewed, according to the employee.
The NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which oversees the VRC, did not respond to requests for comment.
Detailed information on the makeup of the NIH isn’t publicly available, but a 2022 article on the NIH website stated that contract employees made up 42% of the NIH’s total staff. The agency has over 21,000 non-contractor federal employees.
Contractors are especially prevalent in non-administrative positions, like staff scientists and research technicians, who conduct research in the NIH’s 180 laboratories across the country, said the VRC employee.
Most NIH employment contracts need to be renewed every two years, with a contract review taking place each year, said the VRC employee. But those renewals and reviews require the NIH to communicate with contract agencies that pay and insure the NIH’s contract staff. Those communications haven’t taken place since Trump took office and issued a temporary ban on Health and Human Services communications, said the VRC employee. That ban was lifted in February, but communication between the NIH and contractor agencies still appears to be stalled, the employee said.
“If that doesn’t take place, that technically puts the person out of the job,” said the VRC employee.
Another NIH employee, also speaking under condition of anonymity, said they’d been “completely in the dark” on whether contract employees would be able to continue working past their yearly review dates.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made a point of calling for cuts to the NIH’s workforce: In November he said that he would like to fire 600 NIH employees on the first day of the Trump administration. While his plan did not come to fruition right away, nearly 1,200 probationary employees of the agency were fired in February as part of cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. A portion of those employees have since been reinstated, but some rehired employees were reportedly put on paid leave.
All of the NIH employees who spoke to NOTUS said that losing contract workers could have a profound impact on the agency.
“It would completely hobble so many programs,” said the third source.
One complicating factor for some contract workers is that a disproportionate number are not U.S. citizens because it’s difficult for non-citizens to be directly hired by the federal agencies.
The VRC employee estimated that more than half of the dozens of contract employees that they know are foreign nationals. Once their employment contracts lapse, they have only a few months to find a new job before their visas expire. Many of these contractors are early-career scientists who came to the U.S. in pursuit of the best research opportunities, the employee said.
“These are young people in their 20s, 30s. They’re trying to find their way in life,” said the VRC employee. “This was a bet, to leave their country, come here, establish themselves here. And for some of them, this is the end of the road.”
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Margaret Manto is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.