The Small Business Administration told dozens of recently laid-off employees this week that they could get their jobs back, but rescinded that offer a day later.

SBA sent reduction in force notices to 77 employees on Sept. 29, just before the government shutdown. On Monday, the agency’s top HR official told impacted staff that those RIF notices have been rescinded.

“This letter is to formally rescind the reduction in force (RIF) notice dated 9/29/25,” SBA’s Chief Human Capital Officer John Serpa told employees in a Nov. 18 notice obtained by Federal News Network. “You are being reinstated to your position of record with the Small Business Administration (SBA).”

The notice gave laid-off employees until Wednesday to return to the office, if they wished to have their jobs back. If not, employees were given the option to retire or resign.

But a day later, the same SBA official said the layoffs will remain in effect.

“Notwithstanding any prior communication from U.S. Small Business Administration, the Sept. 29, 2025 RIF notice and termination affecting your position will remain in effect,” Serpa wrote.

The RIF rescissions and their immediate recall stem from competing interpretations of verbiage in the shutdown-ending spending deal Congress passed last week, which also put the Trump administration’s latest round of governmentwide layoffs on hold for now.

An SBA spokesperson told Federal News Network on Tuesday evening that the agency “has determined that the most recent continuing resolution signed into law does not apply to any RIFs executed by the SBA.”

“Therefore, the RIF in question, affecting 77 positions, remains,” the spokesperson said.

The spending deal that Congress passed on Nov. 12 to end the government shutdown states that, “any reduction in force proposed, noticed, initiated, executed, implemented, or otherwise taken by an executive agency between October 1, 2025, and the date of enactment, shall have no force or effect.”

SBA’s layoffs were also not included in a federal judge’s preliminary injunction that blocked the Trump administration from proceeding with layoffs during the 43-day government shutdown.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, in an Oct. 28 court proceeding, told parties in the lawsuit that her preliminary injunction “does not apply to RIF notices issued before the shutdown,” including those sent to SBA employees.

“The record may reflect that many employees of the Small Business Administration have been contacting the court. But it appears that the RIFs that they’re subject to went out on September 29 or 30, prior to the government shutdown. They would not be covered by this preliminary injunction,” Illston said.

SBA unveiled plans in March to cut its workforce by 43%. The agency expected to cut about 2,700 positions from its 6,500-employee workforce, mostly through voluntary separation incentives, as well as terminating pandemic-era and other term-appointment positions. SBA said it would only seek a limited number of layoffs through a nonvoluntary RIF.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said at the time that workforce cuts were needed to reduce “mission creep” and employees no longer needed to support pandemic-era stimulus programs.

An SBA employee told Federal News Network that union attorneys argued that SBA’s layoffs should be protected by the continuing resolution passed by Congress, because their separation dates would fall between Oct. 1 and Jan. 30.

Other unions have also made that case. The American Foreign Service Association said last week that its interpretation of the spending deal passed by Congress would block the State Department from moving forward with layoff notices it sent to more than 1,300 employees this summer.

The spending package passed by Congress states that between the date of enactment and Jan. 30, 2026, “no federal funds may be used to initiate, carry out, implement or otherwise notice a reduction in force to reduce the number of employees within any department, agency or office of the federal government.”

“We understand that Congress intended for this language to apply to as many federal employees as possible, including those who received layoff notices from the State Department on July 11,” AFSA wrote. “Given that the department set the separation date for the July 11 layoffs as today, Nov. 10, those actions should not move forward. We have written to the department to urge them to halt these actions immediately.”

AFSA wrote in a follow-up post that it is awaiting details “on how the continuing resolution will be implemented and what it means for Foreign Service members affected by the July layoffs at State.”

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