To try to mitigate the economic effects of a mass labor flight, state and local governments are opening local positions to federal employees.
In a desperate attempt to save the Washington region’s economy, which depends on providing services to the federal workforce, political leaders are frantically trying to find a place for government employees who President Donald Trump is attempting to fire.
In an effort to provide a safety net, officials from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia have been pooling their resources and making offers to rehire federal employees. Every major county in the region now has a website with connections to everything from local job openings to unemployment filing, and officials are attempting to hire as many former federal officials as possible in state and local government.
The future of the region would suffer greatly if hundreds of thousands of federal employees lost their employment. The administration is considering selling federal facilities in Washington, where the jobless rate is already slowly rising. According to the District’s budget, up to 40,000 federal jobs would be eliminated, plunging the city into a “mild recession” in 2026.
Officials are now attempting to entice employees to remain in the area after a slower start, with many regional leaders in a wait-and-see attitude soon after Trump was elected and few tangible plans for widespread layoffs.
Earlier this month, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared that the city will speed up the recruiting process for federal employees who want to transfer to municipal government positions. In an effort to attract federal employees to the state’s expanding biotechnology, cybersecurity, and education industries, Maryland Governor Wes Moore also presented an omnibus recruitment package that included virtual job fairs.
In an effort to promote the state, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican and Trump supporter who has backed DOGE, started a campaign called “Virginia Has Jobs.” According to his office, many Virginians are “concerned about the impact of the federal workforce realignment on their careers.”
Local authorities’ growing concern that the mass firings would lead to a labor exodus that would have a significant negative economic impact on the D.C. area is reflected in the allocation of local resources.
Federal judges have since declared some of these terminations unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to rehire certain probationary employees. However, that does not eliminate the possibility of more severe cuts in the future.
During a press conference earlier this month, Moore stated, “What I have witnessed over the last six weeks is worse than anything we could have predicted.”
