Federal workers face unpaid furlough

WASHINGTON DC: With the United States government shutdown, non-essential government employees are furloughed, or placed on temporary unpaid leave. Workers deemed essential, including those dealing with public safety and national security, keep working.

After previous government shutdowns, Congress passed measures to ensure that unpaid workers received retroactive pay. The Trump administration would support a similar measure, a senior administration official said on Friday.

Workers began finding out on Friday whether they would be furloughed, but official notices were expected to come as early as yesterday. They would receive their last paycheque for work up until the shutdown on Jan 26.

The last shutdown, in October 2013, lasted more than two weeks and more than 800,000 federal employees were furloughed. There is no official tally of how many would be off work this time. Here are some details about what happened in 2013, along with recent updates from officials:

The Defence Department said on Friday that a shutdown would not affect the US military’s war in Afghanistan or its operations against militants in Iraq and Syria. Civilian personnel in non-essential operations would be furloughed. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said a sustained funding impasse would cause ships to go without maintenance and aircraft to be grounded.

About 95,000 of the Justice Department’s 115,000 staff would keep working.

The stock market-policing Securities and Exchange Commission had said in the past it would continue operations temporarily in a shutdown. But it would have to furlough workers if Congress went weeks before approving new funding. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, meanwhile, would have to furlough 95 per cent of its employees.

More than 1,000 of the 1,715 staff at the White House would be furloughed, the Trump administration said on Friday. The president would be provided with enough support to carry out his constitutional duties.

The Trump administration plans to keep national parks open with rangers and security guards on duty. The parks were closed in 2013 and it resulted in a loss of 750,000 daily visitors, said the