You’re Not Hired! President Trump Imposes Executive Agency Hiring Freeze

On January 23, 2017, President Trump issued a memorandum imposing a freeze, which prohibits all executive agencies from hiring federal civilian employees to fill positions that were vacant as of noon on January 22, 2017 or creating new positions. Though agencies are forbidden from “[c]ontracting outside the government to circumvent” this prohibition, some exemptions exist, namely for military personnel, for positions that executive agency and department heads deem “necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities[,]” and as the Office of Personnel Management Director determines are “otherwise necessary.” Per the memorandum, the freeze is scheduled to expire upon implementation of a long-term Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plan “to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through attrition[,]” which OMB must recommend within 90 days of the memorandum’s date.