{"id":599886,"date":"2026-04-22T16:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/599886\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T16:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:22:14","slug":"a-year-after-doge-former-federal-employees-are-still-looking-for-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/599886\/","title":{"rendered":"A year after DOGE, former federal employees are still looking for work"},"content":{"rendered":"

After he applied to his 599th\u202fjob, John Burg stopped counting.<\/p>\n

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Burg was laid off as a contractor for\u202fthe U.S. Agency for International Development in January 2025 after a decadeslong career that took him to Thailand, Kosovo and El Salvador. He is one of more than 300,000 federal workers and contractors whose jobs were eliminated by the Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n

\"Image:John Burg in Iraq for the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010.Courtesy John Burg<\/p>\n

One year, one massive spreadsheet of job leads and only a handful of interviews later,\u202fBurg has returned to the job he had in college, doing carpentry work in his Takoma Park, Maryland, neighborhood, just outside of Washington.<\/p>\n

For more on this story, tune in to NBC News NOW<\/a> at 12 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of licensed contractors won\u2019t do work for less than $60 because it doesn\u2019t fit their economy of scale. That\u2019s my bread and butter,\u201d he said. \u201cLittle old ladies, they need lightbulbs changed. I do stuff like that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image:John Burg volunteering in Takoma Park, Maryland, in 2025.Courtesy John Burg<\/p>\n

He\u2019s built his business to include some larger jobs, like a neighbor\u2019s porch renovation, but is making just 15% of his previous salary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel more connected to my local community than ever. More disconnected from my financial goals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s not alone. NBC News spoke with 13 former federal employees and contractors who were laid off during the DOGE job cuts or took the \u201cFork in the Road\u201d buyout offered by Elon Musk. Seven are unemployed, two are re-employed but making far less than they previously did, two have side hustles and four have moved to find work.<\/p>\n

WellFed, an organization that supports former federal workers, estimates just 25% of its members have found new jobs.\u202fOneAID, an organization of former USAID workers and their implementing partners, estimates at least 50% of its membership is still unemployed.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaid-off workers are now moving into a category that is long-term unemployment. The unemployment checks have stopped. They\u2019re having trouble with health care,\u201d said\u202fWellFed\u202fco-founder and program director\u202fRebecca Ferguson-Ondrey, who herself lost her job at the Administration for Children and Families almost a year ago.<\/p>\n

In the Washington, D.C., region, where almost 10% of the workforce works directly for the federal government, and many more for federal contractors, these job losses were keenly felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very challenging to translate some of those skill sets and that public sector experience into the private sector,\u201d said Catherine Baker, a former employee at a USAID implementing partner and the managing director for strategic partnerships and communications at OneAID.<\/p>\n

Even then, she said, \u201cwe just aren\u2019t creating enough jobs as a nation, and certainly in the larger D.C. metro region, to absorb that workforce into the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Harbourt lost his job as the lead safety and occupational health manager at the Food and Drug Administration\u2019s Center for Veterinary Medicine in Maryland last year. Now, he commutes from New Market, Maryland, to Kansas two weeks per month to work as a consultant. \u201cThe job market, particularly in Maryland, is unforgiving now. … There\u2019s a stigma being a former fed,\u201d he said, echoing a sentiment shared by other former federal employees. \u201cAnd that affects your marketability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Image:David Harbourt told NBC News that the job market is “unforgiving now.”Fiona Glisson \/ NBC News<\/p>\n

While he\u2019s away, his wife balances working full time and caring for their two children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re parents, you usually work as a unit,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you lose that again, now it falls all on one individual \u2014 who has a full-time job, who has to deal with your own stresses at work like any other American.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long periods away from home have also weighed on Harbourt.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad used to travel a lot for work … when he was first starting out, and he always talked about how it is something that really affected him, because he missed being away from his family,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that was always something that\u2019s stuck with me and something I wanted to avoid, if at all costs. But unfortunately, because of the nature of landscape these days, we all have to kind of take our opportunities when they come around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the former federal employees who spoke to NBC News said working in public service felt like a calling. Months of unsuccessful job applications have chipped away at their mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough. It\u2019s tough. And depression is something that is a constant thing to avoid or do battle with and try not to fall into,\u201d Burg said, taking a break from installing board and bead paneling on a neighbor\u2019s porch. \u201cBalancing on ladders with a nail gun and holding lumber up with one hand and a nail gun in the other, there\u2019s really no time or opportunity to be depressed. You really have to stay focused and just get work done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bree Danner found out she\u2019d lost her job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early 2025 while traveling to Indianapolis to say goodbye to her dying grandmother. She\u2019d worked various jobs at the agency for nine years before finally securing a permanent position in overdose prevention in August 2024. She was let go as a probationary employee six months later.<\/p>\n

Danner says being fired damaged her \u201cfeelings of self-worth as a professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI need work that feels mission-driven and feels meaningful to me and is aligned with my values,\u201d Danner said. \u201cI\u2019m passionate about service and helping others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danner spent the past seven months focusing on being a foster parent for an immunocompromised preteen at her home in Atlanta. She\u2019s spent her savings and severance and has racked up credit card debt.<\/p>\n

Other federal workers have struggled to access health care and housing after losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

Becky, who declined to share her last name because she is worried that speaking out may negatively affect her as she applies for jobs, moved back to her hometown in Kentucky after losing her job at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. The cost of living is lower, but she took a big pay cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it was the only feasible, reasonable option for myself and my daughter,\u201d she said, adding that she\u2019s a single parent. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make the best of it and trying to get my daughter to make the best of it, but I do feel like I would rather be in the D.C. area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becky lost her job in mid-July but didn\u2019t receive confirmation of continued health coverage until November. During that time, Becky, who is diabetic, bought one month of more expensive coverage through the Affordable Care Act for herself and skipped doctor\u2019s visits, her flu shot and A1C checks, she said. She was still billed for months of insurance she did not know she had.<\/p>\n

In March, she became eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance, but her current job ends at the end of the school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still kind of a blow to \u2026 who you are,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been working all these years and contribute a lot and give a lot back to a place that I work, and twice in a year I\u2019ve lost a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her neighbors in Kentucky are sympathetic but largely support DOGE cuts to the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been told that story, right, that the government, federal workers are lazy and they don\u2019t do anything,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I feel like the opposite is true. Not that the government can\u2019t improve, not that we can\u2019t be more efficient, but I feel like most \u2014 in fact, I would say, all of the federal workers that I have worked with, they take their oath very seriously,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a couple people say, \u2018Well, it needed to happen.\u2019 Well, did it? It hasn\u2019t made the government more efficient,\u201d she added. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t saved the government money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After he applied to his 599th\u202fjob, John Burg stopped counting. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-599886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}