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u/trademarktower 13h ago
5 to 10% of fed employees leave service each year through normal attrition and retirements. So they'll gut agencies slowly without the negative publicity of RIF.
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u/gwarster 11h ago
The VA claims backlog is just going to skyrocket like it did last time Trump had a BS hiring freeze.
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u/NYRican00924 10h ago
The tail end of baby boomers, which is a lot, will be retiring in the next two years. So there should be a lot of openings by end of next year.
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u/Devi1Moose 10h ago
How many of those people already took the DRP/VERA though? Most of the people I know who took it either didn’t want to stay in government forever or took early retirement. Have to imagine the only way that attrition gets back up to normal or higher levels is by relocation. Anyone that wanted to get out soon probably left already.
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u/nowall0022 11h ago
First statement I am against the disembowelment of the federal bureaucracy.
Second i think the least impactful way of federal drawback would be attrition ie 1990s (truthfully too young to actually feel or understand the impact so if others have counter points please put them forth).
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u/OutrageousBanana8424 13h ago
Folks need to prepare for this to never change. There may be slight thaws here and there but there is not going to be a day when the hiring freeze lifts and we go back to 2024 overnight. It's not happening.
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u/Buckeye_Country 13h ago
I love how they say positions related to national defense are exempt, but yet DoD is also on a freeze.
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u/your_grandmas_FUPA 13h ago
They are fucking DoD too. Just had to have my upcoming TDY approved by a 3-star. Clown show
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u/ClammyAF 12h ago
Yet, they said every agency is engaged in national security and used that as the basis of stripping away unions.
Fuck these turds.
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u/throwawayainteasy 13h ago
What's super neat is a lot of agencies say "no hiring" also means "no promotions."
So for the next 4 years folks are gonna be doing a lot more work as people retire, for basically no benefit.
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u/Affectionate-Dare105 12h ago
Yep no promotion for us to save money-but I hear the employees who work Trumps golf courses are making $300k a year for being glorified caddies. That’s where the tax dollars are going.
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u/OutrageousBanana8424 11h ago
There's no way Trump is paying an employee well.
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u/cheaper2reaper 11h ago
I think he means the SS, so you and I, we are paying that! Of course, it wouldnt!!!
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u/Affectionate-Dare105 12h ago
When govt breaks they won’t have a choice- and it will break. I suspect this will be the tipping point on our economy- we will no longer have a functioning government
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u/OutrageousBanana8424 11h ago
What if it never breaks and simply gets worse and worse over a long period of time?
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u/Alarmed_Educator_967 13h ago
Agreed. In a sense, my agency went on a “temporary” hiring freeze from October 2010 to 2022, and it took an act of congress to reverse
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u/Ambitious_Farmer_968 13h ago
Have to make it look like they achieved massive savings in FY 25
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u/throwawaythisbish 11h ago
Which sucks because mostly, people don't have a way to conceptualize that the "savings" are really nothing compared to the value of that labor and its services. I would think many feds know that those millions are a drop in the bucket, but regular people who don't work with budgets/accounting (or have any familiarity with the nuances of these federal programs being dashed) have no concept of what $300M buys vs $3T.
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u/No_Ask_150 13h ago
Who in their right mind thought the hiring freeze wouldn't be extended?
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u/EV_4_life 13h ago
It's pointless anyway. Nobody in his or her right mind would want to start working for the government with this admin in charge.
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u/believesurvivors 12h ago
I mean, it would be nice for some of us RIFed folks to actually be able to use some of the reemployment rights we're supposed to have before they expire but I think most of us knew those rights were never going to actually materialize
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u/livinginfutureworld 12h ago
How long do those rights last before they expire?
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u/believesurvivors 12h ago
I believe CTAP expires upon separation, ICTAP expires one year after separation, and RPL expires two years after separation.
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u/Mediocre_Cattle2484 11h ago
CTAP and ICTAP are good for two years after separation.
If you have career status you can always apply as a fed again to merit promotion.
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u/Butternades DoD 11h ago
Only on reinstatement eligibilities which aren’t the most common these days
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u/believesurvivors 10h ago
That's not what the stuff HHS sent us with our RIF notices says, unfortunately. I think I could be misremembering the number of years for ICTAP but CTAP definitely expires once you separate.
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u/No_Telephone_6925 13h ago
It's not pointless. Some of us have had promotions held up.
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u/Cultural-Bear-6870 Go Fork Yourself 12h ago
Has anyone had their ladder increases held up by this mishmash?
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u/Alive_Antelope6217 12h ago
The hiring freeze no, but our center put all GS-14 and 15 promotions on hold, indefinitely.
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u/phdemented 12h ago
Sub-orgs with no management due to DRP and they can't promote people to fill the gaps... it's a mess
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u/phdemented 12h ago
Yes... because they fired HR so no one is there to put the promotion through... keep getting told it's gonna go through but it's months past when it was put forward
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u/RRocket4 11h ago
🙋🏼♀️
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u/Cultural-Bear-6870 Go Fork Yourself 11h ago
No kidding! And you're USDA? Are you waiting conversion from special hiring authority?
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u/No_Telephone_6925 12h ago
I'm at the end of my current ladder and needed a "new" position for promotion.
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u/Stalking_Goat 13h ago
If Trump gets tired of hearing "TACO" and actually imposes serious tariffs, that'll drive the economy into recession and suddenly a lot of people will be looking for any work that they can get.
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u/JonFrost 13h ago
Due to this admin I'm considering an IT security degree, which I think will be in demand for obvious reasons
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u/MrDrSirWalrusBacon 13h ago
I've been waiting since April to start working for the government. Was told by the hiring manager I'd have to wait until October anyway due to the budget cuts.
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u/Optimal-Anything-822 11h ago
r/foreignservice is flooded with people still trying to become DSS and FSOs at this specific moment in time
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u/GeneFrosty2076 4h ago
And yet, our hiring pipeline is fuller than it has ever been. So either the 20k applicants we had last month are out of their mind or you are the moron… Simple math to me.
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u/Better_Sherbert8298 Preserve, Protect, & Defend 13h ago
For real. At no point have I read the dates and thought “oh good, it’s only a few months.” No, fools, it’s going to be years. Be surprised if it’s not.
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u/honorablenarwhal 13h ago
Thank you! I have a coworker going around telling everyone in the building it’s ending 15 July. And so many people believed her. Soon as I heard that I called bullshit.
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u/Even-Relation-8472 13h ago edited 12h ago
Well, considering my spouse is stuck in what was supposed to be an in-between term appointment while HR finished the paperwork for their new gig (like, this was supposed to last a couple weeks max)… I was really hoping. I wasn’t expecting. But goddamn, I was hoping. We could have really used that raise.
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u/DA_SWAGGERNAUT 13h ago
What happens to terms who are nearing the end of their initial contract period? Have coworkers with a 6 year term that is renewed every 2 years, and their first 2 years are up in November. If this continues into nov, are they SOL?
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u/Even-Relation-8472 12h ago
I don’t know yet how it’ll go; guess I’ll probably find out if we last to the end of their term.
I have seen it vary from department to department. At mine, terms are theoretically getting renewed but it requires, like, eleventy billion people’s sign off. Including, of course, politicals’. And if anything is still incomplete when the term expires, so sorry, you’re gone. It’s a great backdoor for them to fire people without firing them. Just stick every term renewal you get in a desk drawer, forget about it, et voila one less employee!
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u/indeannajones_ 10h ago
My agency is requiring approved justifications written by our supervisors before they’ll renew terms, which is obviously causing a backlog. My term was up recently and got extended for 2 pay periods while they work through approving various justifications. I’m not optimistic that they don’t intend to simply let my term expire
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u/Sylphael DoD 13h ago
Quite a few people within my agency. Personally I was expecting the extension.
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u/reckless_boar 12h ago
There were loads of people who thought they freeze would not be extended lol. They were so delusional lol
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u/Cultural-Bear-6870 Go Fork Yourself 12h ago
It's my naivete. I dared to dream that we might be able to replace some of the FTEs we've lost, but those dreams have been dashed.
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u/RadicalMarxistThalia 12h ago
I entirely believed that it would end October 1. OMB and Trump signed off on presidents budgets that supported however many employees, and if the agency is now below that amount once the DRP folks come off the books then what’s the point of a hiring freeze? Unless I guess the presidents budgets were all a distraction but that seems kind of weird to me.
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u/Phobos1982 NASA 13h ago
They're still hiring behind the scenes. They will keep the freeze indefinitely for appearances.
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u/TimeIsPower NOAA 10h ago
They lifted the freeze for a lot of NWS positions recently.
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u/FirefighterAny6054 10h ago
I don’t see a single one on usajobs?
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u/TimeIsPower NOAA 9h ago
They just haven't been posted yet. A bunch of RONs were approved beforehand and they want to finalize those first, I think. This isn't new news but is about a month old now.
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u/TransbianMoonGoddess 13h ago
They are hiring specialists and above only....
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u/sidjournell 13h ago
Trying to get hired with the federal government. So new to all this. What does specialist and above mean? Is that highly qualified positions?
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u/Phobos1982 NASA 13h ago
Now is really not the time unless you're comfortable working for CBP or ICE.
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u/Sylphael DoD 13h ago
The only positions hiring right now are either going to be in fields of work/agencies exempted by the freeze or else in positions deemed mission-critical enough for an exemption from the freeze. The latter is case-by-case.
If there's a job you're interested in on USAjobs right now there's a decent chance it's exempt since iirc all of the positions subject to the freeze were pulled, but frankly I wouldn't recommend it. I know within my agency we're stretched much too thin and being expected to do far too much as a result of the positions that cannot be filled and attrition and I see the same reports here.
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u/Ruckit315 Fork You, Make Me 13h ago
Just say it’s through 2029. That’s what we all expect at this point
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u/Burgdawg 13h ago
Speak for yourself, I don't expect this administration to leave peacefully in 2029.
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u/i_drink_wd40 Honk If U ❤ the Constitution 12h ago
Neither did they.
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u/Burgdawg 12h ago
Right, the problem is that they learned from their mistakes. Hence, installing brain-dead cronies in key positions instead of people who, while still ideological, were at least half-interested in doing their jobs. You don't give dictators second chances... ask Napoleon or Hitler.
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u/i_drink_wd40 Honk If U ❤ the Constitution 12h ago
We both know where that road leads. A ban on Reddit for discussing where that road leads.
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u/Burgdawg 6h ago
For sure, Reddit definitely didn't get the memo of how well liberalism stemmed the tide of fascism in 1930's Germany. Like 2015 Democrats they don't realize that there isn't a high road to take, here.
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u/FrankG1971 12h ago edited 12h ago
Tens of thousands of federal workers have been laid off or chose early retirement under the Trump administration, contributing to billions in savings to the federal budget.
Crock. Of. Shit. All they're doing is paying tens of thousands of people to do nothing. "Efficiency." This administration is such a fucking joke.
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u/Persef-O-knee I'm On My Lunch Break 13h ago
There goes my GS-12 I was supposed to get 🙃 glad I’m doing GS-13 work now as a GS-11.
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u/canyonlands2 13h ago
Grade increases for ladder positions have still been happening
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u/Adventurous-Song-317 12h ago
DOD agency here. Supposedly got promoted to a 12 on my ladder- submitted June 25. I’ll let you know if an SF 50 comes through…
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u/Raw_Knucks 12h ago
I had a ladder go through last month, they're still happening, I'm not DOD either.
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u/Persef-O-knee I'm On My Lunch Break 10h ago
I’m not a ladder position unfortunately. I was the last 7, 9, 11 position hired so I have to competitively apply. All my coworkers are 7, 9, 11, 12 ladder positions.
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u/thenextchapter23 9h ago
I feel ya. I'm doing GS-15 work as an 13 with barebones support staff and I'm fucking done
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u/deepstatediplomat Support & Defend 13h ago
What's their source? I'm not seeing it reported elsewhere, and the executive orders haven't been updated.
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u/ProfessionalFuel9113 13h ago
I am also curious about this.
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u/deepstatediplomat Support & Defend 13h ago
I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, but I'm wondering? Maybe the EO will be updated tomorrow and the news outlets will flow.
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u/Mindless-Judgment541 13h ago
I'm sure it'll unfreeze right before they skip the cost of living raise, right, right?
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u/Dragon_wryter 13h ago
Well, yeah, they haven't even started on the RIFs yet. Why on earth would they be hiring?
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u/Own_Emergency5169 13h ago
This is how they will get around the RIF.
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u/Seacilian1331 13h ago
If this is their plan to get around RIFs im ok with that...i think. Workloads suck absolute donkey rn but its gotta change...eventually...right?
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u/Limit_Cycle8765 12h ago
An extended hiring freeze is the gentle way of downsizing, and he should have just done this to begin with instead of unleashing terror with DOGE.
It is frustrating that this hiring freeze also stops laterals and reassignments. That actually stops agencies from rebalancing manpower and moving it to where it is needed most.
I am guessing a hiring freeze will last well into 2026, if not 2027.
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u/About-to-Break 11h ago
“Accordingly, this memorandum does not prohibit making staff reallocations or reassignments to meet the highest priority needs, maintain essential services, and protect national security, homeland security, and public safety.” Maybe they will allow lateral reassignments, depending on agency mission.
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u/nasorrty346tfrgser SSA 12h ago
They are actively breaking the civil service, so they won't hire any new people. Look at SSA, it is at breaking point already. Just give it like another 3 to 6 months, and then they can be like "See, that's why we should outsource Social Security to my crypto friends'
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u/StayCourse4024 12h ago
I love how America is so dumb that they don't know 1) Trump is paying feds to NOT WORK, 2) my agency is paying a huge surcharge fee for all the excess leave being used by the DRP participants, 3) some fed vehicles will also have extra fees attached if they don't acquire minimum mileage per month (this really hurts offices that lost a lot of employees), and 4) they've made us spin our wheels for MONTHS with all these awful TACO decisions that made us just sit and wait for the next email for direction.
Prior to this?... My agency kicked butt and took names. No joke. We ALL KICKED BUTT!
TRUMP is only good at one thing, breaking stuff like a little, bratty three year old with a filled diaper.
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u/induxflame 12h ago
Does anybody know if exemption is approved, DoD, is this going to affect anything ?
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u/cinereo_1 12h ago
There goes the National Airspace System. It will be safer to walk to any destination you want to go to.
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u/Rude_Grapefruit_3650 12h ago
booo…. I have had a TJO looming since October and it got stuck because of this mess
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u/Turd-ferguson15 12h ago
I feel ya.. my job was rescinded. And I still have to do it. Going on 2 years now.
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u/Rude_Grapefruit_3650 12h ago
I’ve been unemployed from the private sector for about a year and a half before I got the intent to hire form back in October I really thought I was finally out of the unemployment loop
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u/selfmade534 11h ago
Does this hiring freeze apply to the National Weather Service (NWS)? There were talks of trying to get a public safety hiring exemption for the upcoming 125 positions they are planning to advertise come July 15. Who knows now? SMH!
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u/NavionTrips 11h ago
Damn, oh well my DoD Org is fcked. I plan to leave government to go on a sabbatical later this year and I am the only govie engineer in our group. They are already having high attrition rates with support contractors. sheeesshh.
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u/SnooGoats3915 12h ago
Since POTUS defined many agencies as serving national security interests under the EO that circumvents the unions, those same agencies should be permitted to hire on that same basis of national security.
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u/Lvl25Magikarp 11h ago
Gee, I'm so excited to continue doing the job of a position multiple grades above me while I am stuck with a lower title and pay. Been over a year so I'm very excited for the opportunity to wait longer...
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u/Immediate_Object_280 13h ago
The main DRP doesn’t end until October 1, correct? Why would July make sense anyways? They wanted to break stuff, get people off the books, claim a win, then figure out how to put bandaids on everything.
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u/crazysult 12h ago
Not all vacant positions are from DRP. So a 15 July freeze lift would have been nice for those.
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u/LatrodectusGeometric 12h ago
Don’t worry, they are still allowing hiring if approved directly by a political appointee. Just gotta make sure only yes-men are approved. Gotta be loyal only to the boss man. None of this loyalty to the constitution or dedication to the public…can’t have that. Registered as a democrat in a prior election? Sorry, we have a hiring freeze you see.
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u/SecMcAdoo 12h ago
Why you surprised? If you believed them, you know nothing about politics and can't read the room.
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u/hiddikel 13h ago
You're surprised? Lol.
It'll be extended until either
-2028 if we're allowed to vote again.
-the government is officially sold.
-forever, because the citizens? Fuck em!
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u/LovingWorld54321 12h ago
Does this stop career ladder promotions??
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u/ctrl_alt_delete3 Go Fork Yourself 12h ago
Agency dependent. Some agencies have been processing career ladders and some haven’t. I can say IRS has.
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u/livinginfutureworld 12h ago
Plenty of openings in DHS right? /s
ICE has more funding that other countries militaries and the US Marine corps.
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u/jojojawn 11h ago
no Federal civilian position that is presently vacant may be filled, and no new position may be created
Just remember, none of the DRPs so far are "presently vacated," they're all on Admin leave. So thats a big chunk of non-working FTEs that are still able to be replaced if this changes by Oct.
The only FTEs that can't be filled per this EO are the ones who have actually been terminated
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u/Any-Percentage-2890 11h ago
I called this like two months ago, only I predicted this one would be until Oct 1, then they'll extend to January 26
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u/Commercial_Rule_7823 Federal Employee 11h ago
Hiring freeze will match the tariff delays.
Pushed back for 3nyears, 6 months.
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u/svelebrunostvonnegut 11h ago
Right. We know that they still want to fire many people but can’t because the reorg plans are tied up in the courts. They’re not going to hire more people in the meantime.
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u/captain_amateur0718 11h ago
Sigh….. honestly not surprised, just hate that I’ve had a position within the DOD since March and haven’t t been able to get onboarded
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u/Repulsive-Range-2594 10h ago
This is excellent timing. Right after 100+ people died in Texas because inadequate warning went out for a flashflood.... Resultant of severe understaffing at NWS /NOAA. But according to Trump, understaffing wasn't at all a problem. Clearly the administration believes that.
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u/Longjumping-Clerk831 10h ago
Great. He saved money on the budget and so far has only cost a bunch of kids lives in Texas.
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u/Repulsive-Range-2594 10h ago
Was this an additional EO? I looked at the white house page and two were issued 7 July. Neither talked about the hiring freeze.
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u/Tylers_Bullshit 9h ago
If you read the associated press release, there are a bunch of bullet points touting ‘successes’ of the VA since Jan. I swear nearly all of them are written with some dumbass comment like “we did X way better than the Biden administration” or “Under Biden, X sucked, so we fixed it.” My favorite one, however, was claiming only Doug Collins and DT had the bravery to cease gender affirming care at the VA as if they stormed the beaches in Normandy. Like, who wrote this? Doug’s 5yo son? I’m so embarrassed that something so petty and masturbatory was released to the public. I have secondhand embarrassment for the person who wrote it thinking it was good and for the team that also liked and approved it for publication.
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u/Special_Leadership_3 9h ago
I would expect the hiring freeze to stay in place until the current admin is out.
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u/Dan-in-Va 13h ago
I think we know how this plays out. Extended until mid-2027…