Don’t reflexively pull your money out of the Thrift Savings Plan. Image: Tom Saga/Shutterstock.com
By: John Grobe“You have fifteen minutes to collect your belongings and vacate the premises”. I have seen in the news that USAID employees were told just this when the shuttering of their agency began.
In past years, I worked in the outplacement industry and noticed that even the harshest employers would give their laid-off employees at least two hours. Not that two hours is a long period of time, but it beats the heck out of fifteen minutes. Plus, the private sector employers would provide their employees with cardboard boxes – I wonder if USAID did so.
If you are faced with such an order, you’ll have to comply and then wait and see if there are any changes due to court action, changes of heart, etc.
But whatever you do, take more than 15 minutes to make the important financial decisions that might face you as you enter an uncertain time in your career.
Don’t reflexively pull your money out of the Thrift Savings Plan. Separated employees are allowed to leave their money in the TSP, in fact, the TSP encourages them to do so. You should have set aside enough money in an emergency fund to cover at least three months of expenses, and the picture will hopefully be much clearer in three months.
If you have more than five years of permanent federal service, under no circumstances should you withdraw your FERS pension contributions.
Five years of creditable federal service will entitle you to a deferred annuity at the age of 62. Sure, if you withdraw your contributions and later return to federal service, you can re-deposit them; but what if you never return?
Prepare for instituting a job search.
Nancy Segal lists several steps to take immediately, and others about a week later after a sudden job loss.
Don’t assume that there will be a lot of federal jobs available, but there should be private sector opportunities.
Consider the following when looking for work.
• Consider whether your federal experience will help you in finding a private sector job. If it will, then be sure to reference it. If it won’t, focus on the skills you utilized and results you achieved rather than where you were when you achieved them.
• Building off the above suggestion, make sure that you emphasize results and skills, rather than duties and responsibilities in applications and resumes. Employers want to know what you have accomplished, not what your job description says.
• Don’t badmouth your former federal employer, no one wants to hire a whiner.
• Remember that who you know can help. What you know is important, but who you know can get you in front of a hiring manager. Networking is important.
Overall, the best possible advice is don’t panic.
Or as Abe Grungold wrote recently about the 2025 federal workforce, Don’t Listen to Rumors and Keep a Clear Head.
Agency RIFs, Reorganizations Starting to Take Shape
Order Formally Launches ‘Schedule Policy/Career,’ Adds Category of Appointees
Top 10 Provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill of Interest to Federal Employees
A Pre-RIF Checklist for Every Federal Employee, From a Federal Employment Attorney
Work Longer or Take the FERS Supplement Now: Which is Better?
See also
Alternative Federal Retirement Options; With Chart
Primer: Early out, buyout, reduction in force (RIF)
Retention Standing, ‘Bump and Retreat’ and More: Report Outlines RIF Process
