Have you, as a project manager, been affected by recent organizational cost-cutting measures like layoffs or reduced use of consultants?

Yes, I was working on a program partnering with NASA to develop the next breakthrough in fuel efficient passenger planes. The current US administration does not favor sustainability, and is trying to push more technology development from the public to the private sector where they can be monetized on a quarterly basis rather than supporting long term strategies which benefit the larger population.

The senior people at NASA have already been offered early retirement. They are incentivizing more early retirement by threatening to slash future retirement benefits. Now we are documenting what we learned to this point and pausing the program indefinitely.