Also keep in mind furloughs are not layoffs - just unpaid leave.
they pay back the salary for the furloughed days once shutdown ends - at least that happened to gov employees after previous shutdowns
And here I thought that the sliver lining of the shutdown was that the government would spend less taxpayer money this year!
So much for that hope.
I went through the shutdown back in the 90s as a contractor working at the Whitehouse and we all got sent home without pay. If you had saved up vacation you could use that, otherwise you didn't get paid and there was no back pay for the furlough period. We basically got laid off for that time period, whereas the government employees got a paid vacation.