The Trump administration’s recent mass firings of thousands of Federal employees have “destroyed” the Federal government’s brand and will damage recruiting efforts for years to come, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
The Partnership for Public Service – a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization – is warning that the Federal government will lose out to the private sector for top talent as a result of the layoffs.
“It’s enormously disruptive for future recruiting efforts and unnecessarily so,” Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told reporters on Friday. “We’re losing critical talent today, and we’re destroying the brand for the future.”
Stier pointed out that the recent terminations of probationary employees have greatly affected early career talent in the Federal government. Probationary status typically indicates someone who has been working in the Federal government for less than two years – before full civil service protections kick in.
“There are already insufficient young people in our government – only less than 7 percent are under the age of 30,” Stier said, adding, “We’re going to see the damage for many years to come because of the actions that are being taken now.”
Jenny Mattingley, the vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, said that the layoffs will also widen the shortage of technical employees in the Federal government.
Mattingley explained that many of the recent hires in the Federal government were in technical roles such as AI, cybersecurity, and IT. For example, the Biden administration recently hired over 250 AI practitioners into the Federal government through the AI talent surge.
“The competition for talent in the private sector for those sorts of positions is intense, and so when you make government look less attractive, then you’re already going to lose out on those positions to the private sector,” she said. “These are exactly the skills we need. That’s why they were just hired.”
“There were already shortages in critical talent,” Mattingley added. “The government needed to staff up in cybersecurity talent. They needed to staff up in a lot of technical talent, particularly with early career talent. And so, I do think that some of the shortages and the challenges with staffing are just going to continue.”
Mattingley said that the Federal government also “spent quite a bit of money” to find the skills they need and qualify these employees “only to turn them away, in some cases, a month or two later.”
Typically, she said that it costs the Federal government about $5,000 to $10,000 per person to hire, depending on clearance.
Stier said that these cuts have also created some “tension and strife” within the Federal government between the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) representatives and agency leaders.
“You have the DOGE representatives driving non-strategic, very large cuts … and you have the political leaders who actually need to run the agencies and have agendas that, frankly, they’re not going to be able to accomplish with the dramatic and non-strategic cuts,” he said.
Nevertheless, Stier said that the layoffs are “deeply problematic” for any future hiring efforts within the Federal government – which is not typically competitive on financial compensation.
The Federal government is able to sell the idea that employees get to work for the American people, which Stier said has drawn “great talent into our government.” However, he said the Trump administration is now telling that talent directly “that working in the government is actually not as high value as working in the private sector.”
“They are undermining the core value proposition of public service for no reason. They don’t get anything from this. They’re only hurting the American public,” Stier said.
“It’s going to take a long time to rebuild that brand, and it starts with an administration that recognizes that that’s actually important to do,” he added.
