By Andrew Hay
(Reuters) – The U.S. Forest Service is firing around 3,400 recent hires while the National Park Service is terminating about 1,000 under President Donald Trump’s push to cut federal spending, people familiar with the plans said on Friday.
The moves, which target employees who are in their probationary period, affects stewards of sites such as the Appalachian Trail, Yellowstone, the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Sequoia National Forest.
The cuts — which represent about 10% percent of the U.S. Forest Service workforce and about 5% of Park Service employees — are part of Trump and his adviser Elon Musk’s campaign to radically cut back the U.S. bureaucracy.
The Forest Service is excluding firefighters, law enforcement and certain meteorologists from firings, according to Matthew Brossard, who represents the agency’s workers as part of the National Federation of Federal Employees union.
The National Park Service will exempt 5,000 seasonal positions under its hiring freeze and fire 1,000 employees, according to advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association.
The National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, said it could not comment on personnel matters.
“Allowing parks to hire seasonal staff is essential, but staffing cuts of this magnitude will have devastating consequences for parks and communities,” NPCA President Theresa Pierno said in a statement.
Across the federal government, some 280,000 employees out of the 2.3 million member civilian federal workforce were hired in the last two years, with most still on probation and easier to fire, according to government data.
Around 325 million people visit National Park sites each year while some 159 million use national forests annually.
“Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service. Our wildland firefighter and other public safety positions are of the utmost priority,” the USDA said in a statement.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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