A Transportation Security Administration official sent an internal email Monday morning pleading for 250 employees to support airports struggling from staff shortages during the shutdown.
The email was sent to more than 100 airports in 10 states, according to CNN, and requests that employees move from their home airports to other struggling airports in a sign of higher unscheduled callouts amid the government shutdown.
TSA has been experiencing unusually high numbers of unscheduled employee callouts since the partial federal government shutdown began Dec. 22 and the essential employees work without pay.
On Sunday, 10 percent of TSA screeners called out of work, more than triple the percentage that called out on the same day last year.
The staff shortage has caused some security checkpoints to close down at airports across the country. TSA says, however, that the shortages have not yet had a huge effect on wait time, which averaged less than 30 minutes on Sunday.
“Many employees are reporting that they are not able to report to work due to financial limitations,” TSA said in its statement Monday, and some shared their first $0 pay stubs on social media.
TSA employees, and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers, have gone without pay over the last month after a spending bill was not passed in December.
