Downsizing the downsizing at Fermilab

After Congress slashed the budget for high energy physics just before Christmas last year, well into the 2008 fiscal year, Fermilab had to scramble to figure out how to cope with a huge shortfall in its budget. The response was twofold. Firstly, all employees would be subject to "furloughs" in which all salaried employees would take one week off without pay in every two-month period. This has made it hard to get, say, five Fermilab people in a meeting together the past few months, and of course was a big burden on the families involved. The second aspect was layoffs. At one point it seemed that as many as two hundred people, from all parts of the lab, might lose their jobs. But now it appears that it will be 140 people, since a number of people chose retirement. There was happy news this past weekend: the furloughs, at least, ...