Employees who work for government contractors are among those who are not working during the shutdown.
Federal agencies contract out duties from on-site cafeterias to janitorial services. Tony Marshall is president and CEO of a company in Raleigh called Innovative Systems Group, which had an $852,437 contract with the Environmental Protection Agency to run a green shuttle service at its campus in Durham.
He says he had to send home four hourly drivers and a project manager this week.
"It really affects us a lot. It's hard to invest in your company when you just don't know when you're going to be working and when you're not going to work," Mashall says.
"I feel bad for our employees because I know that they've got bills and those bills don't stop just because the federal government is shut down."
Hourly employees usually do not receive back pay for lost time. Marshall says about 80 percent of his business, which also includes IT service, comes from government contracts.