Some employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were laid off by the Trump Administration have been invited to return to work.
About 180 employees received an email about their employment status, according to the Associated Press. The email went out on March 4 with a subject line that said, “Read this e-mail immediately.”
The agency message said the step was being taken “after further review and consideration.” The employees were laid off Feb. 15. They were told in the email that their termination notices had been rescinded and that they should return to work on Wednesday, March 5. The agency included an apology in the email, according to the Associated Press, that said “We apologize for any disruption that this may have caused.”
It was not immediately known if any of the reinstated employees worked in areas of food safety and outbreak investigations.
The layoffs at the CDC partly involved new hires and probationary employees who were in the first three years of employment with the agency.
Similar layoffs hit the Food and Drug Administration where at least 90 people were terminated via email on a Saturday night in mid-February. Ten of those employees worked with food safety involving chemical additives.
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