New Tool Helps Local Governments Hire Displaced Federal Workers

Thousands of political appointees will lose their jobs when Donald Trump takes office in January. Jobs have already ended for thousands more campaign staff.

These aren’t the only federal workers who may find themselves in this situation. The leaders of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency emphasized the need for “mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy” in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

Moreover, President-elect Donald Trump has said he will fire workers currently allowed to work from home if they don’t return to the office. (A May analysis by the Office of Management and Budget found that 46 percent of the 2.28 million people who work for the federal government don’t work fully on-site; it’s unlikely he’s referring to all of them.)

The real-world ramifications of such statements remain to be seen, but some in state and local government see an unprecedented opportunity to recruit workers with public service motivation and experience. Job openings in this sector have come down since their 2022 peak but the trend has been continuously upward for several years. (See graph.)

“If there’s ever a time to bring mission-driven talent home, it’s now,” says Quinton Lucas, mayor of Kansas City. Lucas is one of a growing number of local leaders engaging with a new tool that can help them connect with federal workers who have been displaced or are looking for a change.

Preparing for a Surge

Civic Match, a nonpartisan effort to help federal workers find roles in state and local government, has already collected a thousand resumes from federal workers through an online portal. So far, more than 40 state and local governments have signed up to access its resume bank, where they can review profiles of job seekers. These services are free to applicants and governments.

“We feel very strongly that we should do everything we can to keep these people working in government and serving our communities, especially at a moment when the role of cities and states is going to be more important than ever,” says Caitlin Lewis, the executive director of Work for America, a nonprofit leading Civic Match in partnership with groups including the Government Finance Officers Association, U.S. Digital Response and Accelerator for America.

Lewis hopes any state or local jurisdiction with unfilled positions will apply to participate in Civic Match. Its assistance goes beyond digital infrastructure. In some cases, it works with a government to create a slate of the best candidates for a certain role. (This service is also currently free of charge.) It’s also working with place-based funders to be able to offer relocation grants to those interested in leaving D.C. and trying government in a new place, but need support to be able to do so.

Civic Match isn’t interested in luring federal workers away from their jobs, Lewis emphasizes. But she’s expecting the number looking for work to increase significantly in the near future.

Keeping People Involved

Filling local government jobs isn’t just about numbers. Allentown, Pa., has about 900 employees, says its mayor, Matthew Tuerk. It hasn’t had a broad problem filling them, but certain jobs have been consistently hard to fill, and were even before the pandemic.

He’s hoping that Civic Match can help with several of them. The director of human resources position has been a hard sell, Tuerk says. A federal employee with the right administrative skills and experience could make a big difference in the community. A city engineer job has specialized requirements a former federal worker might be able to meet.

“Some of the things we work on are similar to what the federal government works on, but you get to be a lot closer to the impact of those decisions,” says Alex Lawrence, Boston's chief people officer. For example, she’d like to see roles in the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement filled by lawyers who have worked with immigrant groups for campaigns or federal agencies.

Lawrence is managing Boston’s use of Civic Match by sharing information about skill sets in applicant resumes with department leadership to see if they are applicable to jobs they need to fill. She’s had access to the database for a few weeks and has already heard that the public health and housing departments see prospects for a match.

City jobs require residency in Boston. The resume database allows Lawrence to sort according to where applicants want to live or find those who have ties to the city. She sees a preponderance of administrative and policymaking skills in applicants. “We’re probably not going to be hiring lifeguards or teachers from this database,” she says.

Marketing Public Service

Connecting displaced federal workers to state and local careers is part of Work for America’s larger mission to help governments overcome recruitment and retention challenges. The group was founded in 2024, with support from a family foundation.

In addition to the Civic Match portal, it’s using its funding to work with several cities for a year to fill critical vacancies. This will include working with a national agency to develop templates for recruitment campaigns and marketing assets that could be used across jurisdictions.

Lewis hopes to help governments create a function she thinks is missing in regard to recruitment — the constant evaluation of what’s working and what’s not that drives marketing in the private sector.

Mayor Tuerk got a taste of the need for better marketing of public service while canvassing during the run-up to the November election. “People had some reluctance to vote because they didn’t see how government affected their lives,” he says. If more of them worked in government, he says, they would see its impact.

For now, Lewis would like to help federal workers who understand this find local government jobs. “This is a unique moment filled with opportunities in the talent space,” she says. “Every city and state should be working overtime to recruit these folks to come work in their city.”