Job seekers with the U.S. Forest Service got a bit of good news today: the agency has been cleared to hire seasonal temporaries.
Seasonal temporaries could be considered the "face of the Forest Service" — they're trail maintenance workers, engineers, backcountry rangers, says Elizabeth Slown, spokesperson for the Northwest Region of the Forest Service.
"The work that they do is very, very crucial to us," says Slown.
Slown says for the past few weeks, it was unclear whether the Forest Service would be able to hire summer seasonal employees due to President Donald Trump's federal hiring freeze.
A memo issued January 31 listed exemptions, but it wasn’t clear until Monday that seasonal workers for national forests were exempted from the freeze. Wildland firefighters and law enforcement related positions were cleared last week.
Slown says national forests in Montana will be a week behind in hiring seasonal temporaries, but, "we really don't expect the delay to be anything but minimal."
The Northwest Region typically hires 700 - 800 seasonal temporaries for 85 different positions. Those jobs will be posted February 16 through 22 on USAjobs.gov.
