The Department of Commerce released figures Monday showing that 45 percent of NOAA’s 12,001-person national workforce would continue working even if the federal government partially shuts down today.

The Commerce Department, the overseer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, could not supply a specific breakdown for how many of the approximately 200 employees at NOAA’s Gloucester-based Northeast Regional Office would be furloughed under a partial shutdown.

A spokeswoman at NOAA’s Gloucester offices in Blackburn Industrial Park referred all inquiries to NOAA headquarters in Washington D.C., which provided the department’s shutdown contingency plan. 

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times>>