Lawmakers and other officials are raising concerns that President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut the federal workforce are kneecapping recent initiatives to recruit more cyber and technology personnel into government.
In a Feb. 5 letter to acting Office of Personnel Management Director Charlez Ezell, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee wrote that “reckless attacks on federal workers risk reversing recent progress in addressing the federal government’s cyber workforce shortage.”
OPM’s recent 90-day hiring freeze includes broad exemptions for national security positions, but the lawmakers say it’s unclear whether that includes cybersecurity jobs.
While all civilian Defense Department positions are exempt, they point to how other key agencies, like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, haven’t posted any new cyber jobs since the freeze was announced.
“A hiring freeze that precludes federal agencies from filling cybersecurity positions risks the security of federal networks and may prevent sector risk management agencies from fulfilling their obligations to help defend critical infrastructure,” the lawmakers wrote.
An OPM spokeswoman pointed to OPM’s Jan. 20 hiring freeze guidance and referred Federal News Network to agencies for any additional, agency-specific carve outs.
During a homeland security committee hearing Wednesday, Partnership for Public Service President Max Stier flagged the hiring freeze, the push to get federal employees to resign and the collection of information on probationary employees.
“There is truly real damage being done to the federal workforce, specifically the cyber workforce” Stier said.
He cited an email he received from a CyberCorps Scholarship-for-Service program participant, who said she had job offers rescinded until the hiring freeze is over.
Stier said while a hiring freeze at the start of an administration is not uncommon, it’s “enormously disruptive” to the government’s efforts to improve cyber hiring.
“When you do a hiring freeze, you layer on top of what is already not working well a whole other set of problems, not only with those people who are already in the pipeline, but frankly, in your ability to attract people from the outside who are looking at the hiring freeze and saying, ‘How can I go there?’” Stier said.
Agencies have sought to recruit more tech experts in recent years due to rising cyber incidents and the increasing importance of technology to agency missions.
The hiring freeze comes just months after the Biden administration launched a “Service for America” campaign to fill hundreds of open cyber, IT and artificial intelligence-related jobs across government. The campaign was led by the White House Office of the National Cyber Director.
Seeyew Mo, who led cyber workforce efforts at ONCD, said the freeze could upend a lengthy federal hiring process that includes a competitive job interview, as well as a background investigation and security clearance adjudication.
Mo said people who are now stuck in that months-long process could decide to take jobs elsewhere instead of waiting out the uncertainty.
“An across-the-board freeze, unless lifted quickly, will set us back months if not years,” Mo said.
The Trump administration’s efforts to target probationary employees could also impact employees who were recently onboarded as part of the Service for America or “Tech to Gov” initiatives of recent years.
While some cyber jobs at national security-related agencies may be exempt from efforts to cut the federal workforce, Mo said cyber and tech expertise is still needed across all federal agencies.
“We need a lot of talent in Housing and Urban Development or the Social Security Administration or other agencies,” Mo said. “As more of our infrastructure becomes digitized, we’re going to need more tech and AI and cybersecurity folks to do the work. Those functions are not going away. They have to be done somehow.”
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