The Real-Life Consequences of the Federal Hiring Freeze

“The program where I work has grown 40 times its original size [in terms of the number of communities it served], and the person who had this job before me never got assistance,” the staffer says, even when the program grew. Still, she says, “There are three positions that manage the program. One was empty, one retired, so it’s just me. And all of the work is statutorily required,” meaning that federal law mandates it.

Employees at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) are feeling a similar labor crunch. One VA health-science specialist who also asked not to be identified for fear of losing her job says the hiring freeze has exacerbated the department’s chronic understaffing problem. Of the two teams she works on, one has three people though she says there is enough work for four; the other has 12 people though she says there should be 15.

Although the OMB has stipulated that the majority of open jobs within the VA, including most doctors, will be exempt from the freeze, the specialist predicts that it will still make most employees’ lives more difficult. The department’s support staff—including administrators and clerical workers—are also essential, she says. Without them, scheduling, benefits, eligibility, and other important VA functions are impossible to maintain effectively. There is also the issue of having to retain underperforming staff. Under the freeze, the specialist says, “We can’t even afford to get rid of people who suck. It’s a blunt instrument to solve what’s really a chronic HR problem. To me, it’s unethical to freeze things to the point where it’s not possible to provide services to veterans.”

Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, also sees this as a problem, especially because he predicts that this temporary freeze will lead into a longer-term one imposed by Congress—which, unlike the president, has the power to impose a more permanent hiring freeze by passing a law, perhaps before Trump’s executive order expires. The effects of freezes like Trump’s, which functions through attrition, are directed at “random,” Light says: “If you target the freeze, you get a different outcome. Government-wise, across the board is probably the worst way to downsize … It doesn’t distinguish between the various things people do, whether they’re essential to a critical mission or not.” Worse, he notes that this kind of freeze “falls heaviest on the bottom,” meaning that people looking to apply to the lowest-ranking jobs, where there is most turnover, will suffer the most.

Moreover, the federal workforce has a current average age of about 50, and the freeze will cause that number to rise, with the young people who usually fill those low-ranking jobs unable to do so. As essential but lower-ranking spots go unfilled, the freeze, Light says, will “have productivity effects. It will have morale effects, but I’m not sure this administration cares about morale effects.”

These issues of understaffing are likely to get worse, Light says, pointing out that this may have been one of Trump’s goals in signing the order. Light estimates that under the 90-day executive order, between 15,000 and 30,000 jobs that would have opened up will remain unfilled. If the freeze is replaced by a longer one, that number could rise to as high as 75,000 in a year. (The federal government made roughly that number of hires in both 2012 and 2013, the most recent data published by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses, in part, on federal employment.) Although that doesn’t represent a very large percentage of the federal workforce, which is more than two-million-strong, those unfilled jobs are likely to disrupt the lives and responsibilities of both current government workers called upon to do more than one person’s job and would-be applicants who are currently finishing the fellowships or other programs that normally fill those jobs.

Among those on fellowships hoping, against the odds, to enter the federal workforce is the anonymous DOI staffer, who calls her current stress level “indescribable.” “Knowing now I’ll be doing three people’s jobs and never be able to serve the community the way they deserve while it’s just me makes me feel so sad,” she says. She landed her position through the Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF), a prestigious government program that acts as a feeder for many federal agencies. David Anderson, a current PMF finalist—meaning he’s been offered the fellowship but hasn’t been placed yet—describes the atmosphere in the program as disconcerted and apprehensive. “There’s a lot of disappointment in how disorganized and mismanaged things seem to be,” he says. “There doesn’t seem to be a plan, just these kind of theatrical movements. It makes for a good billboard or slogan to say ‘hiring freeze.’ … But as far as day-to-day governance, it’s really difficult. It puts a lot of people who want to do good things in a position where they can’t.”

Anderson, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, is pursuing work in either the civil or foreign service, both of which are affected by the hiring freeze. The DOI staffer says current Presidential Management Fellows are afraid that, although their positions are currently protected under the freeze, after the 90 days stipulated in the executive order, either their program or the departments where they seek permanent employment will be cut. “The 300 or so fellows ending their fellowships this year will likely not be able to convert to a full-time position,” Anderson says.

At the State Department, diplomats-in-training have similar worries. As many as 350 people every year come through the training program in which Anderson hopes to participate. But he says the message they’ve gotten, garbled through rumor and fear, is that “as of right now the State Department intends to hire no new diplomats through this fiscal year. Even people who had been offered a job, some of them had left their jobs wherever they were to come to D.C., and they can’t start.” (A spokesperson did not comment on the State Department’s hiring plans, but said it “is in the process of reviewing hiring in accordance with OPM/OMB guidance. As of this time, no training classes have been cancelled.”) Given Anderson’s security clearance and job prospects, he’s not as fearful about his future as some of his cohort. Still, he says he feels frustrated and “stymied” by the freeze—which, Light points out, may be the Trump administration’s intent. 

Still others dependent on federal agencies for their livelihoods have been affected by Trump’s executive orders. On the day Trump ordered the hiring freeze, he also signed a similar order freezing any contracts and grants currently under review at the EPA. Danielle Purifoy, a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University, has followed news of the budgetary freeze at the Environmental Protection Agency with trepidation. Like many doctoral students, she relies on a fellowship for support, in this case from the EPA. Purifoy spent the week of the announcement in suspense, receiving conflicting emails from her contact at the EPA and the grants administrator at Duke. In the first days after the freeze was announced, Purifoy was unsure if she would receive her monthly stipend and was looking into emergency loans to pay her rent. “It’s very clear that people within the agency haven’t been notified about the specifics,” she said then. “It just means we’re in this holding pattern.”

Her stipend arrived on time, but no new information came with it. Finally, early last week, her EPA grant officer called with an encouraging but still ambiguous message. “She [the EPA officer] had only been authorized to say that the EPA is operating ‘business as usual,’” Purifoy says, adding that the officer said she could not give any further information.   

Purifoy has spent the time since the freeze feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. “With any new administration, I think the expectation is that some programs will be revisited, revamped, or eliminated,” she says. “That’s certainly not out of the ordinary. But this is really not that. You could be in the middle of a program and have your livelihood basically depend on it, and it’s just up in the air all of a sudden.”

For now, she says, “I've decided not to worry until they give me another reason to worry—too much work to do.” She’ll finish her degree within a year and is more concerned about the future of the EPA itself. Meanwhile, Flemings started his job at the IRS on Monday, and says it was a “normal” day; Anderson continues to plan for his Presidential Management Fellowship and talks about starting his State Department trainee program with optimism.  

But it’s still not clear what the future holds for those who depend on government funding and employment, especially if Light’s predictions of a more permanent cut from Congress prove correct. If such a freeze comes to pass, it will accomplish the president’s goal of reducing the size of the federal workforce. But as Anderson, Flemings, and their peers know well, the federal workforce is not some abstraction—it’s a bunch of people with jobs, whose lives will almost definitely be made harder and more stressful.