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well, there are people with good prospects elsewhere who take gov positions out of civic duty and also because it is typically longer term and you're less likely to get laid off for no reason

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thunky 19 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree with everything you said, but it's also not impossible to be laid off by the govt for no reason so there may have been a false sense of security:

https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/nprrpt/annrpt/vp...

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insane_dreamer 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, interesting. Nearly 3/4 of that workforce reduction was at the DOD.

They somehow managed to do it without a bunch of firings, though it doesn't explain the mechanisms (I didn't have time to dig in further):

> A variety of mechanisms have been used to accomplish this, thereby keeping the use of involuntary terminations to a minimum. In fact, of the 239,286 person reduction, only 20,702 have been involuntarily separated.

	▲	thunky 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't know all of the ins and outs but I think a big mechanism was offering $25k buyouts: from https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-buyo...: To reduce the work force by 102,000 positions by the end of fiscal 1994, we offered about 70,000 buyouts. Several non-DOD agencies have offered deferred buyouts that will take place between now and March 1997. Defense will be using buyouts as it continues to downsize through 1999. Counting those, we expect to buy out another 84,000 workers through 1997 as we reduce the work force by a total of 272,900 positions. edit: I realize now that the first link i sent upthread was too early as it only goes to Jan 1996. I've seen elsewhere that the total reduction got to 400,000+.