Trump’s national park layoffs called ‘reckless’

The Department of the Interior is terminating 1,000 full-time National Park Service employees, according to an advocacy group that calls the job cuts “reckless.”

The National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit based in Washington D.C., said the staffing cuts will “leave parks understaffed, facing tough decisions about operating hours, public safety and resource protection.” The NPCA noted that the Interior Department exempted 5,000 seasonal positions from the current federal government hiring freeze, but that the loss of 1,000 full-time workers will “wreak havoc on the National Park System.”

“Allowing parks to hire seasonal staff is essential, but staffing cuts of this magnitude will have devastating consequences for parks and communities,” said NPCA president and CEO Theresa Pierno. “We are concerned about smaller parks closing visitor center doors and larger parks losing key staff, including wastewater treatment operators.”

The nonprofit fears that the park service will struggle to meet visitor demand with fewer full-time employees. 

The cuts were announced on Feb. 14 as part of the Trump administration’s plan to slash federal spending. The Washington Post reported that the 1,000 fired workers were “probationary employees who have worked at the agency less than one year.” A person familiar with the matter said the National Park Service is retaining 300 probationary workers whose jobs are critical to public safety, including law enforcement officers and wildland firefighters. 

Twenty-two senators on Feb. 7 wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum urging him to reissue seasonal employment offers after the Trump administration announced a hiring freeze. While the Trump administration ended up exempting 5,000 part-time positions, it eliminated 1,000 full-time positions, which the NPCA called “reckless with the peak season just weeks away.”

“Years of budget cuts are already weakening the agency’s ability to protect and preserve these incredible places,” the association said.

Some 325 million people visited sites managed by the NPS in 2023. Those visitors spent an estimated $26.4 billion in local communities and supported an estimated 415,000 jobs, according to the senators’ letter to Burgum. 

The most-visited national park is Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, which saw more than 13.2 million visitors in 2023.