President Trump on Monday declared an immediate but temporary freeze on hiring of Federal government civilian employees – but with plenty of wide exceptions for military and public safety positions and for agencies that distribute benefits to citizens.
The president also said he is aiming in the longer term to reduce Federal civilian government employment levels and will take up that effort in the coming months.
The order issued by the president says the freeze applies to “the hiring of Federal civilian employees, to be applied throughout the executive branch.”
It also says the freeze “applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.”
“As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law,” the order says.
The hiring freeze cannot be circumvented through contracting outside the Federal government, the order states.
Specific exceptions to the hiring freeze include military personnel, and positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.
In a less directly stated way, exceptions to the order may include employees of the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services as the order says that “nothing in this memorandum shall adversely impact the provision of Social Security, Medicare, or Veterans’ benefits.”
Finally, the order gives the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the authority to “grant exemptions from this freeze where those exemptions are otherwise necessary.”
Then within 90 days, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – in consultation with OPM and the United States DOGE service – will offering up a plan that aims to “reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition,” the order says.
Once that plan is issued, then the Federal civilian agency hiring freeze order will expire, with the exception of hiring by the Internal Revenue Service, the White House said.
“This memorandum shall remain in effect for the IRS until the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Director of OMB and the Administrator of USDS, determines that it is in the national interest to lift the freeze,” the order says.
