The Trump administration is quietly trying to open up hiring to fill many of the roles at the National Weather Service that were vacated by the layoffs and early retirements forced by tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force, according to CNN's Andrew Freedman.
"The new hiring number includes 126 new positions that were previously approved and will apply to 'front-line mission critical' personnel, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official told CNN," said the report. "The NWS cuts have spurred concerns over how well-prepared the country is to withstand hurricane season, which is just starting to heat up in the Atlantic."
This follows the same thing happening at a number of other critical agencies, where, in some cases, like the National Nuclear Security Administration, the administration had to hire back the very same people they fired. It also follows intense scrutiny about the federal government's response to the devastating flood disaster in central Texas, where more people died than the average death toll from an entire year of hurricanes — and where DOGE had reportedly pushed out a key official in charge of verifying local officials got emergency warnings.
The news that NWS is the latest agency to have to undo the DOGE purge received a wave of reaction from commenters on social media.
"Plot twist!" wrote Washington Post military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe.
"Firing people and then having to hire people to do their job is really inefficient and costly. Great job, @DOGE," wrote Department of Energy operations analyst Dr. Joseph Schmitt.
"Now THIS is waste, if not also fraud and abuse. Firing the experts unnecessarily and then needing to hire new ones," wrote energy expert and Tulane University assistant professor Joshua Basseches.
"So DOGE-related cuts and early retirements eliminated 550 staff at the National Weather Service, and now the NWS is being granted special permission to hire 450 positions to relieve critical shortages. Such a waste of time and resources," wrote Berkeley Earth chief scientist Dr. Robert Rohde.
"What could be more efficient than firing hundreds of employees, belatedly realizing that a drug addict and his band of sociopathic coders didn't know what they were doing, then trying to hire hundreds of people to fill what turned out to be critical roles?" wrote left-wing podcaster Matthew Sitman.
"Not that there will ever be an actual audit but you have to believe DOGE ultimately represented a net cost to the federal government," wrote MLB data analyst Max Bay.