The governor’s office said the state government has more than 7,000 job openings.
The state of New York is looking to recruit federal employees in Washington who were recently laid off amid the Trump administration’s efforts to trim the federal workforce.
The advertisement for New York’s recruitment drive on March 3
appears on digital signboards inside Union Station, the busy train hub in the nation’s capital. It features the Statue of Liberty striking Uncle Sam’s iconic “I Want You” pose with the caption: “DOGE said you’re fired? We say you’re hired! New York wants you!”
The message refers to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a team led by entrepreneur Elon Musk and tasked by President Donald Trump with finding ways to reduce government spending and cut excessive regulations.
Advised by DOGE, Trump in the first five weeks of his second term has shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and taken steps toward
closing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump has also floated the idea of abolishing the Department of Education altogether.
As part of the administration’s restructuring, federal employees have been offered “deferred resignations,” which provide paid leave to those who voluntarily quit government service. At least 75,000 federal workers have so far accepted the buyouts after a federal court
allowed the initiative to continue.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has
directed agencies to review and terminate all probationary employees who are not deemed high-performing or mission-critical. According to
government data maintained by OPM, as of March 2024, some 220,000 workers with less than a year of job experience fell into this probationary category.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is hoping to attract these displaced federal workers to fill the vacancies in her government.
The Empire State employs about 180,000 workers but has more than 7,000 positions
unfilled, according to Hochul’s office. Some of the most in-demand positions currently open include roles for attorneys, engineers, nurses, and IT specialists.
“[The] federal government might say, ‘You’re fired’—but here in New York, we say, ‘You’re hired,’” the Democratic governor said last week in a
video message promoting the recruitment drive.
The Trump administration has dismissed New York state’s recruitment campaign as an attempt to expand an already bloated bureaucracy.
“Leave it to the failed New York state bureaucracy to stack their payrolls with more bureaucrats at the expense of the abused taxpayers of New York,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told The Epoch Times. “Growing the public sector is not President Trump’s definition of job creation.”
New York is the latest state to reach out to Washington’s displaced federal workers. Maryland and Virginia, home to many of the affected individuals, have also put out their own recruitment and support campaigns.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat,
said on Feb. 28 that his administration is streamlining the hiring process to help displaced federal workers secure new government jobs. This initiative builds on an online job portal launched two weeks ago, designed to match former federal employees with available positions.
In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has
launched a new job website connecting job seekers to 250,000 available positions, including opportunities at companies such as LEGO, Micron, Amazon, Capital One, Liebherr Mining Equipment, and Electro-Mechanical.
The Virginia Employment Commission is also offering job placement support. The commission’s maximum unemployment benefit is $387 per week.
Youngkin announced the initiative while expressing support for the Trump administration’s federal agency overhaul.
“I actually have extraordinary empathy for the fact that there are many workers in Virginia today—from our federal workforce—who are experiencing real concerns,” he said last week at a
press conference.
“We have a federal government that is inefficient, and we have an administration that is taking on that challenge of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse and driving efficiency in our federal government. It needs to happen.”
