Federal hiring freeze to challenge National Park properties

All seasonal and some permanent positions are on hold as Trump administration attempts to hold down costs

Posted 1/30/25

A Trump administration hiring freeze is turning many experienced National Park, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management seasonal workers to other industries. While a similar hiring freeze was …

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Federal hiring freeze to challenge National Park properties

All seasonal and some permanent positions are on hold as Trump administration attempts to hold down costs

Posted

A Trump administration hiring freeze is turning many experienced National Park, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management seasonal workers to other industries. While a similar hiring freeze was instituted in Trump’s first term, the post-Covid economy has proved to be too challenging for many part-time employees to wait out the current freeze.

The pause in hiring, announced on Jan. 20 in an executive order from the president, will delay filling seasonal positions and rescinds current job offers, including for permanent position hires in all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.

For the departments, it comes at a tough time as seasonal workers typically are hired this time of year for the summer. Their starting dates depend on the type of job they have, but most would have started between April and May. In Yellowstone National Park, most seasonal employees need to be at their jobs when the gates swing open beginning on the first Friday in May.

Agencies are tight-lipped on the matter and future and former employees are hiding their identities while protesting the freeze, for fear of reprisals. Requirements to “rat out” fellow co-workers who may have worked in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility programs (DEIA) has resulted in many workers scrubbing their social media accounts, according to employees.

In response to press requests, National Park public information officers are referring all press requests to representatives in the Department of Interior (DOI), but even then, responses offer little information and without attribution.

After the Tribune requested answers to a series of questions, a DOI spokesperson would only say “The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service are implementing President Donald J. Trump’s executive order across the federal civilian workforce.”

The senior agency spokesperson asked their name not be used. No further information was offered, including the number of jobs affected or the effects the freeze will have on projects and visitor experience. The hiring freeze implemented during the first Trump Administration lasted 79 days, and agencies have been through this before. Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan also implemented hiring freezes during their terms and the Obama administration issued a hiring freeze of senior executive service positions in 2020.

Social media sites are flooded with complaints and protests about the current freeze from many seasonal workers, yet they are posted anonymously for fear of wrecking their chances at a future job.

“Yay. I get to be unemployed and homeless for a longer period of time,” said one anonymous post on Reddit. “Why do I even try anymore.”

Many employees are working seasonal jobs until they can land a permanent job in the service.

A seasonal park ranger willing to talk on the condition of anonymity, including as to what National Park he worked at, said he has no choice but to do what’s right for himself and looked at other opportunities, despite loving his job with the National Park Service.

“I was given a job offer for the season. I accepted the job offer, I went through all of my online onboarding activities, and then I just received an email, you know, shortly after Trump took office, that the job offer had been rescinded,” said the NPS seasonal employee, who is also seeking a permanent position.

He’s cautious of speaking out and said most employees feel the same way.

“Everyone is just sort of keeping their mouth shut right now,” he said. “We’re not putting our names on anything, because nobody knows what’s coming next.”

The result could be a decline in services and experiences for tourists, he said.

“Not only could visitor services suffer, but if they don’t have people out there collecting at the gates, either lines are going to get extremely longer or they’re just going to bring in less revenue because they don’t have anybody there to collect,” he said.

   

Looking for permanent positions

Candidates with bachelors and post-graduate degrees often work several years as seasonal workers hoping to find an open door to working for the federal government. Yet, one former local National Park Service employee said challenges come with the territory and are a matter of personal choices.

“Seasonal [employees] have a bit of a rough work. It’s a little nerve wracking, and when you get a hiring freeze or something like that, it throws a big monkey wrench in the works,” said former 25-year NPS employee Richard Jones of Wapiti. “You know, you’re trying to make your plans, and, ‘gosh, I got another job offer from somebody else for the summer, and if I don’t take it now, then I’ll lose it. Can I wait around in the Park Service?’ Well, that’s life, in my opinion.”

While many seasonal jobs are filled by college students and retirees, for those folks seeking permanent jobs, especially those hoping to score a job at one of the top parks or to remain in their hometowns, Jones said the problem is being too park-specific.

“That’s a personal choice,” Jones said. “When those people have been working seasonal jobs successfully —  they’re good employees and they have other qualifications — I guarantee you, it would take but a year or two for them to get a permanent Park Service position somewhere within the 450 park properties.”

The National Park Service doesn’t just hire rangers. They employ mechanics and museum curators, data analysts and landscape architects, engineers and educators, law enforcement officers and firefighters. Many employees work onsite in parks, but there are also a large urban presence in regional and national offices. They hires thousands of seasonal employees each year to welcome and educate visitors, conduct research, protect resources, help keep parks looking beautiful and more. Seasons vary by park, but summer seasons generally operate between March and September, and winter seasons between October and February, according to the service.

The Park Service accepts applications for summer positions between October and February and for winter positions between July and August. Some of the larger parks, including Yellowstone and Grand Teton, receive hundreds of applications for each opening.

The freeze is intended to find available cuts in the agency’s budgets, according to the executive order. Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the director of OPM and the administrator of the United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), shall submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition. Upon issuance of the OMB plan, this memorandum shall expire for all executive departments and agencies, with the exception of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the order reads.

Once a plan to reduce the federal workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition is developed, departmental leadership will work closely with its bureaus to execute personnel decisions “in a manner that best supports the mission of the Department and the policy priorities of the Administration,” the order continues.

That means that all hires could be delayed until as late as April 20, giving administrators in need of seasonal summer employees very little time to get needed workers — if applicants are still interested in the position.

“If this isn’t a reason to seriously reconsider a career with the NPS, I can’t imagine anything is,” reads a post from a contributor on Reddit with the user name roughandreadyrecarea.

Jones isn’t buying the situation as an emergency. He said working shorthanded at the Park Service isn’t really news.

“The Park Service traditionally has always been severely underfunded and severely understaffed. They’ve never had enough employees to do what should be done,” he said.

Interestingly, in 1982, the Government Accounting Office issued a report on the impact of hiring freezes and found they had “little effect on federal employment levels” and “disrupted agency operations, and in some cases, increased costs to the Government.” This was because government agencies, rather than hire more contractors, had to pay overtime to existing employees, which is more expensive, according to the report.

    

Erasing DEIA

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) also provided guidance to agencies regarding last week’s Trump executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” which repeals Executive Order 14035, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce. They provided steps to close Agency DEIA Offices.

“In light of the above Executive Orders, each [agency director] should take prompt actions regarding the offices and agency sub-units focusing exclusively on DEIA initiatives and programs,” a letter from the OPM to Heads and Acting Heads of departments and agencies reads.

There are offices at every federal agency that are tasked with making sure they have a diverse workforce and to stop discrimination against any employee. Specifically, the OPM directs agency leaders to take the following steps:

No later than 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Jan. 22, all agencies were required to send an agency-wide notice to employees informing them of the closure and asking employees if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. They were required to send a notification to all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.

They were also required to take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) of DEIA offices and withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, materials and equity plans issued by the agency in response to now-repealed Biden administration executive order. They were told to cancel any DEIA-related trainings, and terminate any DEIA-related contractors and then “No later than Jan. 23, report to OPM on all steps taken to implement this memorandum, including a complete list of DEIA offices and any employees who worked in the offices.”

No later than 5 p.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 31, agencies are also required to submit to the Office of Personnel Management a written plan for executing a reduction-in-force action regarding the employees who work in a DEIA office.

“Agencies should coordinate with OPM in preparing a list of all contract descriptions or personnel position descriptions that were changed to obscure their connection to DEIA programs,” the letter read.

The directives also includes a section requiring employees to inform the OPM if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.

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