As the Trump administration cuts thousands of workers and leaves many more in limbo, the governor of New York sees a hiring opportunity.
Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday invited federal employees to apply for public-sector jobs in New York State, starting a recruitment effort aimed at workers targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is a cost-cutting effort, not a department. Last month, the Trump administration sent deferred resignation offers to federal employees with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” and Mr. Musk announced over the weekend that all federal employees would be asked to detail their accomplishments or face possible termination.
New York employs about 180,000 state workers but has more than 7,000 unfilled jobs, according to Ms. Hochul’s office, due to the tight labor market and an aging work force.
“The federal government might say ‘You’re fired,’ but here in New York, we say ‘You’re hired,’” Ms. Hochul, a Democrat who has taken an adversarial posture toward the Trump administration, said in a video announcing the recruitment drive. “In fact, we love federal workers. Whatever your skills, we value public service.”
At a State Police graduation ceremony, Ms. Hochul also extended an invitation to any F.B.I. employees who were looking for new jobs, saying that “It would be an honor” to have them. The governor’s office said that the state opened a portal on Tuesday morning with resources for potential applicants but that it was too early to gauge the response.
A spokesman for the White House, Harrison Fields, accused New York officials of trying to “stack their payrolls with more bureaucrats.” He added, “Growing the public sector is not President Trump’s definition of job creation.”
It was unclear how many federal workers in New York had been fired since President Trump returned to office last month. There were about 54,000 federal workers in the state as of December, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress.
Mr. Trump has tasked Mr. Musk with dramatically reshaping the federal government, asserting that the project will make the government more efficient. Since the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, the federal government has cut at least 28,000 workers and has effectively frozen entire federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., the main government organization that provides humanitarian aid.
Courts have temporarily blocked some of the firings. Overall, the federal government employs more than two million people. The Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources agency, declined to comment on New York’s recruitment effort.
Ms. Hochul’s initiative drew a skeptical response from William A. Barclay, the Republican minority leader in the New York State Assembly. Mr. Barclay said that he would be pleased to see the state hire qualified employees from the federal government. But he said the recruitment drive seemed more like a “political statement” than a fix for holes in the state’s work force.
Former Gov. David Paterson of New York, however, called Ms. Hochul’s approach “very forward thinking,” predicting that it would attract federal workers who have “absolutely no relief in sight.”
“She’s coming with an alternative,” Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, said in an interview, adding, “I’m sure that other governors are going to follow in Gov. Hochul’s footsteps.”
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