Only 8.3 percent of Securities and Exchange Commission employees would work in the event of a Federal government shutdown, according to the agency's “plan for operating in the event of a lapse in appropriations” released today on its website.

About half of those 332 SEC staff to be retained would stay “because they are engaged in law enforcement activities," while the rest would “protect life or property,” the Commission said in its plan.

Except for these employees, all others are subject to furlough and may not report to work on until the first business day after the shutdown ends. Workers who are not exempt from the furlough during the shutdown and still work as unpaid volunteers would be in violation of the Antideficiency Act and their service “will not be permitted under any circumstances.”

The major functions that “exempted employees” will keep running, according to the plan, are:

“emergency enforcement matters, including temporary restraining orders and/or investigative steps necessary to protect public and private property”;

EDGAR and other filing systems;

monitoring of market technology operations, broker-dealers reportedly in financial distress, market funds, as well as international market developments;

communications; human resource support for excepted personnel;

and finally, “ethics functions necessary for the protection of property” and “process essential obligations that need to be incurred by the SEC.”