Since being inaugurated for his second presidential term on Jan. 20, Donald Trump has taken drastic steps to shrink the federal government by slashing thousands of jobs and shutting down entire departments often at a moment’s notice alongside Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk.
The hiring freeze, which was among the very first executive orders that Trump signed on his first day as President, stipulates that no federal position that is “vacant at noon on January 20, 2025 may be filled, and no new position may be created.”
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Joshua Tree National Park is known for its extensive desert. Many of the country’s 63 national parks have wild fauna and extreme terrain that can be very dangerous for untrained visitors.
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‘Assessing our most critical staffing needs for park operations’
As the government agency overseeing the 63 national parks spread across the country, the National Park Service (NPS) has approximately 20,000 employees tasked with everything from search-and-rescue to historical archiving and resource protection.
In an email to the National Park Observer outlet, the NPS said that it is “implementing President Donald J. Trump’s Hiring Freeze Executive Order across the federal civilian workforce” but mentions certain exemptions to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety in the memo.
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“The order does allow for exemptions for the hiring of certain positions,” the NPS wrote further. “The NPS is assessing our most critical staffing needs for park operations for the coming season and is working to hire key positions.”
While the NPS has not elaborated on what roles will be kept, sources inside the department told the Washington Post that any type of law enforcement position will be prioritized. Public safety dispatchers are also among the positions most likely to be protected from job cuts.
Visiting a remote part of a national park this year? Those staff cuts could be especially dangerous
At the end of January, the NPS immediately rescinded approximately 400 positions to comply with the order. The agency typically hires approximately 7,500 seasonal workers for the busy summer period and several senators expressed concern that Trump and Musk’s cuts will leave the parks — many of which are home to large swaths of remote and dangerous terrain — overrun in crowded areas and with very limited opportunity to provide emergency services in remote ones.
On average, over 100 million people come down to national parks in the June-to-September period. Even with the exception for rescue workers, conservationists have also been sounding the alarm about the fact that cuts to roles tasked with resource protection could leave some of the park’s most beautiful areas overrun and destroyed by high traffic.
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“As visitation increases at our parks, Senator King is insistent that our parks must have the necessary funding to operate which includes, but is not limited to, both staffing and maintenance,” the office of Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said in a statement.
One seasonal public safety dispatcher whose job offer for the summer season was rescinded in January only to be brought back two weeks later reported receiving an email saying that “while public safety positions do fall under an exemption from the hiring freeze, the National Park Service still had to request an exemption and obtain approval to move forward in the hiring process.”
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