Heard this directly from a LANL director and then an NNSA chief. LANL was at 11,000 before covid but ballooned up to 16,500-17,000 due to increased spending. The staff numbers need to be cut back down to pre-covid in preparation for the contract bid in 2026. Sandia will see a 10% reduction in R&D staff.
Everyone seems to be asking for transfers to different departments or gov contract work. The contractors don’t have much work either. A lot more people should be preparing for layoffs.
If your project has no funding, you will be laid off soon.
Edit: if your project is still hiring new roles (aka not just replacing someone who left), then it has funding and you are likely safe. If you are bored at work, start applying to jobs.
Edit 2: the ISR group recently got a ‘we are going to become more efficient’ email. This is code word for a reduction in force. If you hear this kind of talk on your team, start applying to jobs.
Edit 3: some are personally offended I used the word lay off as a slang instead of the proper ‘reduction in force’ wording. I apologize for the confusion. This will be enacted via RTO, PIPs, efficiency initiatives, forced resignation, etc. there will be no mass tech industry esque layoff. This will be slow over months and will be done before the new contract bid process starts.
Edit 4: triad employees will be the most affected. Sub contracting companies will potentially have less work, but the RIF has the intended goal to reduce the number of staff working under the LANL maintenance in operations contract that is currently run by Triad. This contract is coming up for a new bid so the staff number needs to reduce in order to be more congruent with the original triad bid staffing numbers. The labs have grown faster in 4 years than it did in the past 40 years without an increase in funding or value produced to justify the growth. A lot of the LANL growth came from covid era money printing.
47 comments:
Does anyone at LLNL have similar info?
“Does anyone at LLNL have similar info?”
At LLNL, if this were to happen,
LLNS management will get an early whiff, and shuttle their “good old boys” valuable or not, to safe jobs, while other long term FTE worker bee career employees, will be put on the EIT route to unemployment, even when they could easily replace the advertised sub-contractor “buffer” employees. If you’re an FTE LLNS “career employee” and accepted employment at LLNL based on an advertised job security buffer (sub-contractors fired first), you’ve been hoodwinked deluxe, and arguably this is a breach of contract.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Ask around for yourself if you don’t believe it has happened before at LLNL.
Interesting rumor, but, given the source, I suspect it came from the other end of the horse.
Since the NNSA extended the LLNS contract 5 years, I think it is reasonable to conclude their layoff/RIF strategy going forward will fall under the “past is prologue” quote.
Please rephrase and add some context .
“Interesting rumor, but, given the source, I suspect it came from the other end of the horse.”
Please rephrase and add some context, because your comment appears to pivot away from the LLNS layoff/RIF topic by way of “no name calling” blog violation. I guess this topic struck a nerve with you. Fine, just please refrain from name calling.
First of all, I am personally offended not only because you used the wholly insensitive term "layoff", but also because you didn't use my correct pronouns. That crime should be punishable by unmentionable acts. With that out of the way, I expect LANL is going to have to make some big changes, but it won't be in overall reduction in headcount. As Mason said, everybody except possibly theoretical biologists will have to dust off their safety glasses and start learning to machine pits, or find the exit. At 30 pits a year and heading towards 20,000 employees, that's only 666 pits per employee year, including the one guy per pit that actually makes it, the rest to supervise.
We all saw the email. Idk why so many are worried about their jobs. Parking and commute sucks. And I never see my kids and I’m exhausted. Please put me out of my misery.
Job openings:
LANL 315
LLNL 78
SNL 72
LLNL last year had cutbacks due to NIF funding, this year it has been the LEP program.
Mason sent a mail saying hiring freeze and that 300 or more people need to be moved from indirect to direct.
6:00 you need to remember that LANL is presently hiring anyone with a heartbeat with the full intent to fire half of them while the other
half leaves due to lack of housing, terrible work conditions, and overly bureaucratic management.
7:40 interesting as I know a few Sandians and at least one from LLNL that have applied at LANL due to housing, terrible work conditions and overly bureaucratic management. They have never heard back apparently, must be that hiring freeze.
"housing, terrible work conditions and overly bureaucratic management. "
Why on earth would you apply to LANL? Is this a joke? Housing is horrible in Los Alamos. As for the work conditions I have not seen at as much better than Sandia or LLNL. The bureaucracy is beyond crazy at LANL.
Housing isn't horrible in Los Alamos. I have a house here and it's great.
Idk a home in Livermore that sells for 2 million is 700k in Los Alamos. Many people are setting up ADU sub let apartments in Livermore for a reason. Then there is the whole remote (family) van life worker situation in Livermore / Silicon Valley and overflow.
All 3-4 labs have the same bureaucracies just a slightly different flavor, all management comes from the same mold and the same organization pulling the strings you are not getting around that.
Based on what, do you think LLNS will be profit incentivized to modify their NNSA blessed layoff practices? Really?
"Anonymous
Idk a home in Livermore that sells for 2 million is 700k in Los Alamos. "
Not true, maybe 2 million to 1 million.
I am not sure where you are getting your numbers but Condos in Los Alamos are 650k and a nice family home is 900k, although there are bidding wars for every house with up to 10% increase.
I am not saying housing is better in Livermore but in general Los Almaos is now about half of what you find for a good city in California.
There is reddit after reddit about the housing in Los Almaos. The other issue
is you have to live in Los Almaos. Sure there are some nice trails but the town is beyond horrible at this point and is on rapid decline. No doctors, no restaurants, the supermarket is horrible, no plumber, no service and so on. The huge influx of PIT work has really changed the town. Also oddly enough they had to hire a huge amount of support staff at LANL, and they just hired any body so all the local service workers just transferred to LANL
so the town has a huge problem with local services. This is not to mention that the intellectual aspect of the town as changed substantially form 10 years ago. It does seem more like you are in a manufacturing or industrial town not a science lab town.
Traffic is crazy, with much more aggressive drivers in pickups, more road rage, car crashes, flights in the supermarket, and a lot more drugs in the town
four letters words just thrown around in front of kids and so on. It is not the same place it use to be.
“But in general Los Almaos is now half of what you find in California” right just move the goal post and compare Los Almaos home prices to say Yuba City or Fresno or some random town 5 hours away, but compare Los Almaos to Livermore on what is on the mls you have to laugh at your assertion.
I live in Los Alamos and own a nice family home in a very nice neighborhood. The most I can get for my house is 300k. If you want to buy it for 900k, you are stupid. Two houses across the street with large or double canyon lots sold for at most 400k in the past two years. Yes, compared to earlier years prices have risen a lot. My house was 150k 15 years ago. I have a new dentist, she is looking for a house, and I have talked with her. But 900k is ridiculous and from what I see, not true. Yes, the supermarket has gone downhill because they can get no workers and the supply chain has broken down. This is true nationwide and will get worse with ICE deporting. I have a doctor that I am very happy with. New Mexico in general has a medical shortage. Los Alamos is in better shape. The hospital in Santa Fe is expanding plus is opening a branch in Los Alamos. Various out of town doctors have offices in Los Alamos and are here part time, say one day a week. The orthopedic doctors from Taos and Española have international reputations as does an eye specialist in Sante Fe.
5/06/2025 8:18 PM
Your housing numbers are insanely off.
Look at Zillow a nice family home is 850k in Los alamos, condos about 600k. Tiny 1 bed homes 350k. Also it is well known that the NM has very poor healthcare.
https://sourcenm.com/2024/06/17/lack-of-both-healthcare-workers-and-infrastructure-hurting-new-mexicans-access-to-medical-care/
Los Almos has also lost a number doctors, and everyone complains about the health care in the town. I suspect that you do not actually live in Los Alamos. Are you just troll trying to start a fight on the blog by just making stuff up?
Not very hard to check
https://www.zillow.com/los-alamos-nm/
523k for a condo
920k for a 2800 sqf family home
590 for a condo
690k for 1600 sf home
850k for 2800 sqf
360k for 1 bd 710 squad foot home. (Not a family home)
I don't know in what alternate reality you live but the original poster is closer to being correct with the situation than you are. 900k is high but for a 2700-3000 sqft home not that far off. Take a look at redfin or Zillow. Doctors are scarce in Los Alamos; a couple have left recently, either through retirement or relocating to another area or state. Most seem to be older and nearing retirement. Dentists seem to be in better shape. The county has no dermatologist now; you either go to Santa Fe or Abq. The social deterioration isn't unique to LA it's happening many places but we aren't the science town we once were. I've been here 20 some years; it was never great but it's different now. The one thing the original commenter didn't comment on was the total lack of leadership and vision from our county council; they take whatever recommendations county staff give them and rubber stamp them.
I own a three bedroom home in a very nice neighborhood and I know I can not get more than 300k. We have two friends who are local agents. If Zillow is getting those prices, they are ripping people off. We know three or four older couples who have recenty downsized. They did not sell their old places nor buy their new places for those prices. Yes, I said before that compared to 15 years ago, prices are quite a bit higher but not as extreme as being mentioned. The house next to us is vacant and we and the children are trying to get the older lady that owns it to sell. I know what it will go for. The fact that SV is building a branch has been in the newspapers. I know the location of the construction. The doctors in Taos work on major league baseball players. The hospital in Taos built a special wing for their surgery. They spend a day a week in Los Alamos. I have had several root canals with SF doctors who have an office up here. They have been very good. I have had prostate cancer care here and it has gone very well. My PSA has been consistent with zero for ten years after the cancer came back from surgery in Chicago. The hospital here has both cat scans and MRI and the radiology department is quite good. My doctor that did my colon exams was very good. He has retired but the practice he was a member of is still around. There is also a second such practice and I am due to go in soon. Two hospitals in Albuquerque are quite good, with one of them having a branch in Sante Fe. There are heliports at all the hospitals I have mentioned and the helicopters are flying 24/7. I know it is the same in Ohio where I grew up. This is the way medicine is being done nationwide now. There is a bad shortage of nurses nationwide. One friend of us is a very recently retired nurse. She spent a good part of the past two years in temporary positions around the country; it paid well. Maybe I should mention drugs. Yes, in one week in the past year six died of fentenal overdoses here. That is the only ones I know of. But you had better be thinking about what is going on nationwide. The current round started with a company pushing oxy, claiming you would not become addicted. Doctors in Florida started writing scripts and the bootleg routes northward opened up. Oxy became known as hillbilly heroin. Later in one day Huntington, WVa, had a very large number of overdoses. Fentenal had started being mixed into heroin. A nearby town of about 20000 or so has now been written up by the NYT, Washington Post, and WSJ as the drug capital of the US. At one point there were 12 pain centers in this town. Doctors and fake doctors were owning drug stores and writing scripts. Ohio finally passed a law that doctors cannot own drug stores. They also arrested the obvious problem doctor and the last I knew he is in prison. Yes, Los Alamos has not completely avoided drug problems but how could it given the state of the nation? The drug problem in this country has always been a perfect example of supply and demand. Given the demand, there will be a supply being provided. The picture of drug pushers forcing young people to use is BS. The demand side, whatever causes it, needs to be addressed.
5/07/2025 7:34 PM
Dude you are not getting it. Zillow does "rip" people off it is what the houses are selling for. In case you did not notice LANL hired thousands and thousands of people. That has a tendency to drive up housing.
"Yes, I said before that compared to 15 years ago, prices are quite a bit higher but not as extreme as being mentioned."
Again all you have to to do is check the real estate listing in town. Those are the prices. Every council meeting people are complaining about housing.
The health care cost in New Mexico is one of the worst in the nation. Again
all well documented.
The town has declined for a number of reasons. The biggest is that the lab simply grew too big and the type of worker has changed. The number of doctors has not changed but has declined. The number of stores has declined,
the number of restaurants has declined. Housing has gone way up, but try getting any kind of service for your home.
From Reddit
Is the goal of working at LANL just to afford a place to live and a nice car?
The vast majority of people at LANL do not have a nice car. They either have the beater they have had since grad school, a subaru, or a swasticar. Now there is an influx of pickups.
And yeah, cost of living is a huge problem in all of Northern NM. ABQ at least has the slums. But LA/SF are probably more staffed by folk from Espanola and Pojaque than not these days. Which is "great" for people getting ground down by capitalism. Less so for people who spent 4-10 years getting a degree and desperately want to use it and live comfortably.
Which is the reality. People don't work at LANL for the money... outside of immediately after grad school. They do it because they want to do research that aligns with their doctoral work or because they want a factory job that lets them stay close to family in Northern NM. They make enough to live comfortably and work for the weekend. And a tiny select few do it because they truly Believe In The Mission and feel that rus-err, Canada is the greatest threat humanity has ever seen and a nuclear deterrent is all that is protecting our women.
But yes, housing here is outrageous for what you get. Limited supply. Most is old. But, folks move here for a number of reasons. If you don't like the work you are doing. then move or get another job if you can. That applies to any job, anywhere.
I spoke with a realtor a few months ago and he had internal data showing that houses that sold within 2 weeks of listing were typically going for 6-9% over list. Houses listed under market often had 20 or more offers.
More from reddit
Mean house price in 2023 was 570k, median was 550k. Depending on where you are on the east coast this may not be shocking. That said, what you get for 550k might be worse than what you get in Virginia or something.
Note there are really few places to buy or rent because everything comes off the market almost instantly...
Housing prices up 75% since 2018 (RIP our chances of buying here)
67% of Lab workers = forced to commute
We need 1,300-2,400 new housing units by 2029
Current density = too low to support decent bus service
Ones to avoid: Anything privately offered. landlords here are mostly bad people. Also avoid apartment complexes. They charge high rates for crappy apartments. Actually, just avoid Los Alamos county in general. Find something in a good town somewhere that has reasonable housing. If you can get hired at lanl you can get hired at Livermore, oak ridge, Argon, or any of the sites in better places!
Just a couple of points. I am not going around and around on this. A sentence above. "The number of doctors has not changed but has declined." Nice trick. A contradiction all in one sentence. Subaru's are excellent cars and German cars are still decent. Pickups are popular nationwide with Detroit shifting production from sedans. Yes, Trump is being stupid on Canada and many other issues (Greenland), and I guess half the country supports him. Are there people in Los Alamos that do also? Again we are a part of this country and, while I wish ithe current culture would be different, tell me how to change this situation, the half. Protect our women with nucs. Ridiculous. Enough. I am suspicious of the above. Some of it smells like AI. It also has the feeling that the above is coming from those that make a living attacking the Lab.
There are people on 4/10s who rent a nearby bedroom (or a couch) for 3 nights a week. There are a lot of subcontractors whose contracts call for them to be at the Lab 2 weeks a month and wherever else they want to be for the other 2 weeks (or some similar arrangements).
Enough Los Alamos bashing please. We get it. Housing is expensive here but not as expensive as in other parts of the country. The town of Los Alamos (and White Rock by association) sucks. It's changing. It can be made better if there's a will to make it better.
LA and the pretty scenery aren't why a lot of people come here and stay here for their careers. Many of us really do still believe in the lab mission. Same at LLNL and the other labs in the complex. We get ground down daily by the endless training, seemingly uncaring management and assorted administrative BS . And yes, we do get to help protect the women with nukes. Same with the men, the kids, the parents, the grandparents and their grandkids. As naive as it sounds, many of us work and live here because we think there's still value in the country and in protecting the country. We don't do it for whomever is in charge of the current administration or our favorite political party or ideology of the month. Certainly not for the contractor who administers the lab for the country. LANL (and LLNL) are evolving entities that are unique places with unique histories and dedicated people that's taken decades to build. Tough as it is sometimes to work here, the careers that you can build really can't happen anywhere else.
5/09/2025 7:54 PM
I agree but the thing that is most depressing is that 20 years ago everyone believed in the mission and saw it as a higher calling, and was very proud to be part of excellence. Today it seems like most see it as just a job, and you get paid if things work or they do not work. The goal is to to do the minima and live for every Friday off and every weekend. It is good pay for work that is not that intense compared to industry, academics and other DOE labs, but it no longer offers that "cutting edge" or elite status that it once had. Back in 2000 during the WHL issue DOE officials said that LANL was the "Crown Jewel" of the entire DOE complex which was true by a number of metrics. Now no one would say this today, as LBNL, ANL, ORNL and PPNL are have surpassed LANL. It is even worse than that because LANL is much larger. Sure life is easier LANL and are compared to these other labs in terms of work but this was not the case 25 years ago. Over the years lots of LANL staff have left for these labs but almost no one from these labs have come to LANL.
No one says this publicly but the quality of the workforce has drastically declined. There are even some studies on this, LANL no longer has the best and brightest nor does it have the culture where this is fostered. It took a long time to reach this point and the decline got going with Nanos, followed by Bechtel and so forth but here we are.
That being said I know for a fact that there are still plenty of people that believe in the mission and understand the value of LANL, work hard have pride in their work but at the same time the decline of the institute is hard to deny.
A lot of people blame "PITs", I am not sure I buy that. Rocky Flats, had only 1800 people and could build more pits than we ever intend to do at LANL. I would think LANL could do that has well without changing the entire culture of the lab by hiring 8000 people. Also if anybody knows anything about Rockey Flats they in fact did have some excellence science. I simply do not understand the argument that PIT production cannot coexist with other NNSA science.
When I worked at LLNL, I was told to relax on day one and later, when I got acclimated, to stop asking people to commit to project deadlines. I came from a consulting company to the Lab. Needless to say, I didn't last very long.
You need to remember that there were a lot of problems at Rocky. It was closed down with a raid. To restart production these problems have to be fixed. It is expensive and time consuming. So some fixes are overkill, but many are essential. You have to deal with the overkill because of the fear in the country of even low level radiation. There is a problem with waste.
You are correct, the quality of the workforce has declined quite a bit. I had to explain to a senior lab manager recently that we simply don't have the staff to do the research work. Sure, we have a lot of expensive people on payroll, but they are largely worthless. We have techs that can't turn screwdrivers, computer scientists that can't code, experimental physicists that can't build an experiment. They won't fire anybody even though we are short on funding. As a result, I find myself doing everything from coding new algorithms to literally shoveling dirt, depending on the day.
However, lets be real, the quality of engineers and scientists at any lab that requires security clearance has universally declined. Americans just don't get PhDs anymore, they go into medicine, silicon valley or Wall Street. This has been getting worse and worse for at least two decades. It's not so much just a LANL thing.
Lastly, yes, the pit work has brought in the big truck crowd that is more than happy to speed down the road, run a red light and drive you off the road. That is unfortunate, but visit any big city and its far worse than Los Alamos. The quality of drivers has declined everywhere in the past 30 years.
5:50 you need to also remember that Rocky built tens of thousands of pits with wide variety, new designs, and very tight shcedules. LANL struggles to build a handful to specs that have existed for 40 years. There is simply no comparison. We have failed miserably at the pit mission along with almost every mission assigned to us in the last 20 years. One thing we haven’t failed to do is line the pockets of every second rate manager who could secure a clearance.
LANL is not allowed to build pits the way Rocky did. There are safety problems which are the reason it was shut down. Some of these safety problems are legitimate. To fix them is expensive and time consuming. If the Rocky methods were used, life would be easier.
"LANL is not allowed to build pits the way Rocky did. There are safety problems which are the reason it was shut down. Some of these safety problems are legitimate. To fix them is expensive and time consuming. If the Rocky methods were used, life would be easier"
I understand this but, why do we need twice the people to do work 5-10 times a slower rate? I would understand if say the same number of people as Rocky Flats at the slower rate for more safety but this is just crazy. (1) Either they do not know what they are doing, (2) this is a huge scam to make money to hire as many people as possible. (3) The bureaucracy is beyond huge and nothing can be done. (4) A combination of all of these.
It seems like we have had an enough time at LANL and Savannah River to get idea if this is really ever going to work at the level they hope or even a fraction of that.
The last I know a whole new complex is being built. Until that is finished no pits can be built, except a few done in none production facilities, and there have been a few. The construction of the complex and development of new methods and equipment has driven an increase in numbers beyond those needed to run the production. A factor of two is quite reasonable, especially given all the regulation and rules. Since there is no production, only a few prototypes, there is no rate. How can there be?
Again most of the above sounds like it comes from Lab bashing and ignorance.
"Again most of the above sounds like it comes from Lab bashing and ignorance."
How do you see that? The comments look very well thought and clear and certainly are not based on ignorance. There are many reason for the current conditions at Los Alamos and the town, and it would be beyond "ignorant" to deny this. In fact I know very few LANL people that would deny this. I am going to be charitable and assume you are long since retired? Am I right?
Also you seem to be way of base in your statements about housing, traffic and the town. That is a pretty basic we just have way too many people for the town, so yes housing will be tough, this trickles down to town services, who can live in Los Alamos and who the town can hire. Nothing very shocking or surprising about what people are saying.
SNL LIvermore has 7 Job openings, as of today.
No, I am not long since retired. You did not address my statements about pit production so I will not go on with that. As for problems with the town, there are some but not nearly as bad as pictured. I have never had any issues with town services. They have taken care of the replacement of old water, electric, sewage lines. They have updated and resurfaced the streets. The whole country is having trouble with some of the issues. Try driving down St Francis morning, noon, night. There are fewer doctors in town, but it has not impacted me at all. My oncologist died of cancer, but there are doctors elsewhere. I had my prostate removed in Chicago with Dr. Catalona, with a world wide reputation. I could have done it here, with not the same reputation. As I have said before, there are doctors around NM with international reputations in eyes, orthopedics. I find no problem with getting health service outside LA. Such problems exist around the country. Rural health care is in a bad situation. Nurse shortages are nationwide. Trump is going to solve it by cutting Medicaid; less demand for services. I know of people that go to Mayo. Do you think that local health will ever match Mayo? By copter people go to Albuquerque. The care here has never been meant to match these and it never will. Enough of this. I stand by my assessment that a lot of this is just bashing of Los Alamos. I have lived here definitely long enough to recognize it.
"Enough of this. I stand by my assessment that a lot of this is just bashing of Los Alamos. I have lived here definitely long enough to recognize "
Your post bashes Los Alamos more than any other poster. I think I see you game now ;)
"My oncologist died of cancer,"
Hmm
Maybe the way to discuss the health care situation is just to tell what I am doing and seeing, as that is all I can do anyway. When one turns forty, the warranty expires. I use health care systems a good bit, cancer, eye surgery, fractures, dental, tests, scans, etc. Over the years I have not changed in any way how I use the health care systems, either locally, all northern NM, or nationwide. They have served me just fine. I have had doctors move, retire, die but I have never had a problem with lack of service. I have found a new primary care three or four times. The time to get an appointment can be long now but if you plan ahead, no problem. This is true nationwide. If a faster response is needed, I have always been worked in. Example, kidney stones with cat scan even, all done within an hour of me deciding I needed to go in. Among my circle the only complaint I have heard is that the helicopter is expensive. No surprise there. For some special services there are not enough patients in town to support a dedicated practice. Example, root canals. Not a big deal to go to Santa Fe.
5/17/2025 8:55 AM
How are you not long since retried? The problem I keep hearing from young people is that cannot a doctor in Los Alamos who is taking new patients. More doctors are leaving or test that you use to do in Los Alamos you can no longer do. I am glad it is working fine for you but it is not what I am hearing from other people in the town. There is whole reddit pages just on Los Alamos complaining about the health care, housing , traffic and services. It is not Los Alamos bashing it is just a fact.
If you are as unhappy as you seem, I recommend that you think hard about alternatives. You are not doing any good for yourself or Los Alamos.
If people were to leave, that would open up positions to transfer managers.
Is Reddit considered to be social media? We know what social media is about.
It seems that people are ignoring the fact that Saint Vincents is planning on building a branch in the Eastern area of Los Alamos.
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