By Jonathan Allen
New York (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump seeks to reduce the size of the federal workforce thanks to fast -firing massage and mass redemptions, some Democratic governors court the new unemployed to come and work for the governments of the States instead.
New York has filled digital display signs on Monday in the Washington union station, encouraging former employees of the federal government to examine some of the 7,000 job offers in the state public sector. It included a cartoon of a statue of freedom pointing alongside the slogan: “New York wants you.”
Hawaii is an accelerated recruitment. Maryland and New Mexico summon job fairs.
Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, said that the executive power of the United States government, which had around 2.3 million civilian employees in September 2024, was inflated and ineffective. But where Trump sees waste, some Democratic leaders see a pool of workers with specialized skills.
The majority of these employees are based outside of Washington: in regional offices dealing with taxes or weather forecasts or the administration of social security services, in the clinics of veterans and the offices of regional prosecutors, as well as in the national reserves of parks and fauna.
Trump’s attempts to reduce the size of the pay, often in a way considered random, caused anxiety and alarm. At least one American district judge ruled that some of the mass layoffs, which would have tens of thousands, could be illegal.
“These are essential jobs requiring many years of specialized experience carried out by real people with invoices to pay and families to support,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Democrat at a press conference on Monday after meeting some people who had recently lost their federal job.
“They should be congratulated for their service, not mocked by the president and have given a pink shift,” she added.
Hochul said the New York public sector had shrunk due to the COVVI-19 pandemic, and that the state needed technologists, engineers, lawyers, health workers and educators, among other roles.
The White House refused to encourage recruitment efforts in Hochul and other governors on Monday.
“Leave the failed Bureaucracy of New York State to stack their wages with more bureaucrats at the expense of the Maltraities of New York,” wrote Harrison Fields, a spokesman for Trump, in an email. “Public sector growth is not the definition of President Trump of job creation.”
Most federal employees are in the unions, a coalition of which continued the Trump staff management office for having forced convincing ministries to dismiss thousands of probationary employees who have been recently hired or promoted.
On Thursday, US district judge William Alsup took the unions and issued a temporary OPM order to stop trying to dismiss probation employees in other departments, claiming that the office had exceeded the authority given to him by the Congress.
Translation of jargon
Hochul said New York would support all illegally dismissed workers who wanted to return to their federal jobs.
In Maryland, who is close to Washington, Governor Wes Moore, Democrat, ordered state agencies to prepare for an influx of former federal employees and accelerate hiring for “difficult to provide” positions. He will also encourage certain dismissed workers to consider the second career as teachers in Maryland.
The Governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, a democrat, ordered the accelerated jet of identification checks for certain federal workers and so that state agencies make a conditional job offer within 14 days of receiving an individual request.
The governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Democrat, has created a portal of jobs for former federal workers.
At least one republican has also made arrangements for new unemployed.
Governor Glenn Youngkin encourages residents of Virginie licensed by Trump to leave the public service and join the private sector via the “Virginia Has Jobs” portal, which includes CV advice to translate government jargon into business jargon.
(Report by Jonathan Allen in New York; edition by Donna Bryson and Bill Berkrot)
