Broad exemptions to Trump’s federal hiring freeze begin to take shape

The Trump administration is planning sweeping exceptions to its government-wide hiring freeze, likely reducing the number of affected positions to less than half those in government.

The Defense Department is exempting all of its civilian positions from the freeze so far, according to multiple sources, allowing recruitment to continue for around 750,000 positions. President Trump signed an executive order Monday instituting the freeze shortly after his inauguration, but allowed exceptions for positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety.

These exemptions, along with exclusions for positions related to the distribution of benefits to veterans, Medicare recipients, and Social Security recipients, will allow large swaths of the federal government to continue hiring. As part of the freeze, the Office of Personnel Management, Matthew Vaeth and Charles Ezell, acting directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, respectively, informed agency heads that they could exempt any position related to “essential activities”. ” that protect life and property in the same manner as those exempted during government shutdowns. In recent shutdown plans under the Biden administration, agencies planned to require that about 1.4 million, or 66 percent, of federal employees remain on the job during a funding interruption.

In 2017, after Trump announced his freeze, Defense issued widespread exemptions but froze hiring in some areas. A ministry official declined to comment on its approach this time.

“The Department of Defense will execute and fully implement all directives set forth in the executive orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with the utmost professionalism, efficiency and in accordance with national security objectives” , said the official. “We will provide status updates where possible.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined to say whether it would exempt all of its staff, although employees in some parts of DHS, such as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, have stated either that their offices would be affected or that they had not yet heard about it. Nothing. The language of Trump’s order suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, in whole or in part, would be exempt in order to carry out immigration and enforcement enforcement. Trump’s border security.

A DHS employee said he was in the middle of the process of recruiting a staff member and was told to continue the process for now, although he doesn’t expect it ends.

“I will make my selection and if it is subject to freezing, nothing will happen and I will have to hope that my selection will not lead to a job in the private sector,” said the employee.

The Department of Veterans Affairs appears ready to exempt Veterans Benefits Administration employees, but Trump’s pick to lead VA, Doug Collins, told lawmakers yesterday he may freeze hiring of some health care workers. Collins told Democratic senators concerned about the impact of a freeze that they incorrectly assumed a vacancy equated to a real need for the department.

“We will look at the current levels of employees we have and where they are properly located,” Collins said. “We will work according to the decree he gave us.”

The administration will allow new employees with job offers in hand before January 20 to start their jobs if their start date was scheduled for February 8 or earlier. Anyone whose start date was scheduled after February 8 will see this offer. canceled. Agency heads should have already formally rescinded these offers, but can now request special permission from OPM to reinstate them.

Positions that remain vacant should have their job postings removed and all correspondence with potential applicants should cease, OPM and OMB said. Agencies may still hire seasonal employees, certain internship and fellowship programs, for internal career promotions and where doing so would not conflict with applicable law.

Exemptions must be approved in writing by Amanda Scales, OPM’s new chief of staff. Scales entered government as an appointee after working at Elon Musk’s xAI. Scales has been listed as the point of contact for all OPM directives since Trump took office, including for lists that will result in layoffs of employees working in diversity offices and a compilation of all recent hires which are still in the trial period and therefore easy. shoot en masse.

Despite the broad exclusions, the order is still likely to have significant impacts on agencies and potentially pronounced fallout on their missions. In some cases, after Trump’s hiring freeze to begin his previous term, it took years for some agencies to recover from the backlog in vacancies. Most agency leaders ended the administration by suggesting they were trying to rebuild their workforces, although virtually all ended up with fewer employees at the end of its term.

This time around, Trump’s freeze is set to expire after 90 days, although agencies will first have to submit plans — in consultation with the OMB and Musk’s Department of Government Effectiveness — to permanently reduce their workforce through efficiency gains and attrition. The Internal Revenue Service will face a longer freeze, per Trump’s order.

Defense OneLauren Williams de ‘sa contributed to this report.