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Space Force warns of steep civilian workforce losses and says commercial partnerships are essential to resilience
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Summary
Space Force officials told the House subcommittee they have lost roughly 13.7% of their civilian workforce to recent personnel actions and that commercial partnerships and hybrid architectures are central to deterring and responding to threats in space.
WASHINGTON — The United States Space Force told House members that recent civilian personnel reductions and a hiring freeze have cut its civilian workforce by about 13.7%, and that the service must deepen commercial partnerships to maintain resilience.
General Gutlein told the subcommittee the Space Force employs 5,674 civilians and that 671 people accepted deferred separation offers, leaving the civilian population down ‘‘13.7% in our civilian population.’’ He said the Space Force is ‘‘heavily dependent’’ on civilians for base operating support and mission functions and that hiring challenges and retirement incentives have driven departures.
Gutlein described an approach he called ‘‘hybrid architectures’’ — integrating commercial, allied and Department of Defense capabilities to build redundancy and resilience. He said adversary activity in space has increased ‘‘to the point where GPS spoofing, jamming, lasing and shadowing’’ are routine and that the Space Force is leaning on commercial innovation and reverse industry days to accelerate capable systems such as resilient GPS and commercial augmentation contracts.
Members asked about concrete risks from the workforce cuts; Gutlein pointed to hiring gaps in childcare and base operations and said the service is moving personnel and improving efficiency where it can but that the Space Force remains ‘‘under‑resourced to meet the demands for space capabilities placed on it by our combatant commanders and by the nation.’’
